Friday, August 25, 2006
Shooting Doe Fawns?: Game Management?
There was a day, and not so very long ago, when shooting does was considered unaccountable behavior. Hunters who stooped to shooting doe fawns were considered lower than a snake’s belly.
People who shot a doe in the Upper Peninsula often hid the animal in the trunk, and piled luggage on top so no one would see it. Thankfully, those days are, for the most part, a thing of the past.
Michigan has gone from far too many deer in the late 1980s through 2002, and now there are far too few deer in many Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula counties. People who want to shoot deer should be hunting the southern counties where most of the deer live.
I own a large fenced-in enclosure. Shooting deer here isn’t as easy as one might think because there is about 1,000 acres, and there are cedar swamps, marshes, cattails, ponds, creeks, heavy timber, and more tag alder thickets than most people have ever seen.
If a deer wants to stay hid, it can easily do so here. Every year we see an older buck that no one has ever seen before. Why not? He kept his head down, and moved after dark. Old bucks get old because they make very few mistakes.
The question tonight is: Is game management best served by shooting adult does and doe fawns? The answer is a definite yes.
There are many reasons why taking a doe fawn may be preferable to a mature doe, and here are just a few.
*Mature does produce, on average, larger deer (both buck and doe fawns) than will a 1 1/2-year-old doe. The fawns from the older does may grow larger, and may inherit some of the doe’s instincts for staying out of trouble. Those same instincts serve young bucks well too.
*The offspring from a mature doe seem to grow faster than the doe fawns from a young doe. This makes those fawns from big does more likely to survive a bad winter.
*A buck will breed any doe, but the older does often drop their fawns earlier, offering them a better chance for more nourishing good. A doe fawn that comes into estrus in December or January is likely to be bred, and her fawns will be born late and get only the leavings from the most abundant food sources.
*Mathematically, taking the big, mature doe and leaving the smaller doe fawn to live, doesn’t make sense. A doe fawn, in bad weather may die of starvation or winter stress. Young fawns make very tasty table fare, are abundant in the fall, and taking them just makes more sense.
*Frankly, on a deer ranch like mine, some of the same conditions that affect deer herds outside of the fence, do so here. Allowing too many mature does to live is equally unwise. It is a matter of sound scientific game management to manage the herd for the greatest good of all of the animals. If this means shooting 20 adult does and 40 doe fawns, it’s what we do.
*Keeping our deer herd in balance means removing excess animals. On the outside, everyone wants to shoot a buck. That leaves even more does and doe fawns to have fawns in future years, and the problem perpetuates itself when young and old does are not taken by hunters.
Fortunately, the stigma once attached to hunters who kill adult does and doe fawns isn’t as nasty as it was a half-century ago. Reading, and learning about deer, has educated many hunters and most understand that properly managing a deer herd to keep it healthy and in line with its available habitat and food supply, means removing some does.
The DNR took that philosophy two or three steps over the line in the past, especially in northern Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Deer numbers are still very low in many areas, and now they (the DNR) have backed off a bit after admitting they may have been a bit too zealous in the past.
Deer numbers will rebound outside of my fences, and some does and doe fawns will continue to be shot in areas where population controls must be enforced. However, will this increase the number of bucks or the size of their racks?
Not really unless people shoot a doe and allow a 1 1/2-year-old buck to live. Pass that same buck up next year, and he will be somewhat bigger. Shoot a doe instead, and give that buck 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 years to live, and if your and your neighbors cooperate, within four years there will be some huge bucks running around.
Back inside my fence, that is exactly what we do. We shoot does and doe fawns, and allow 1 1/2-year-old bucks to live. Most of the 2 1/2-year-olds are left to live and grow, and that is why we have some big bucks on my ranch.
And that, my friends, is the end of this story.—The Whitetail Wizard