SB2137

[riverview]

Ah yes, tis the season for more "Us (hunters) against Them (landowners)" stupidity. Winter is the Hunter vs. Landowner and then again in the fall we get the Resident vs Non-resident, but I digress. I think all of these measures are anti-hunting. They do NOTHING to promote good hunter/landowner relations. Trying to take hunting opportunities from the landowner, trying to tell landowners what they can and can not do on their own land while simultaneously demanding they let complete strangers with guns wander all over their land enduring the ruts, garbage, and other dumbness people do HAS to be a pinnacle of STUPIDITY. All this will accomplish is to bring about the all land is posted scenario quicker. Which does the exact opposite of what hunters say they want. Maybe thats what the proponents of these measures really want in the end. Hunters need to understand that landowners don't owe you a place to hunt. They never did and they never will. Hunters will come out the loser if it ever comes to a head. I know this will piss off some people, but that's the reality of the situation. Carry On!!

Oh and CWD is still an non issue, however EHD is a true herd killer.

yep

 

[wct12]

I’m just saying it seems like with all the opportunity and game to harvest, the agency you guys live to complain about must be doing a fine job.

Fisheries do a fantastic job. Upland goes the same. I’ve been pretty vocal about things the department does right also.

The big game department is very sub par. That year where 70ish people shot deer out of our yard the department was made well aware there was an over population of deer (not on only yard but every wintering ground for deer around was 2-3x what was feasible there). The big game department isn’t proactive like other departments, it’s 100% reactive and more often than not it puts them behind the 8 ball.

 

[wct12]

I’m just saying it seems like with all the opportunity and game to harvest, the agency you guys live to complain about must be doing a fine job.

I’m very fortunate. Our habitat we’ve built gives us a lot of opportunities for deer and even upland birds, and my relationships with guys are the reason for my opportunity elsewhere. But I can show you a good chunk of acres (60kish) that used to be a phone call and good to go or never posted that now are very little access granted because of the big game department/higher ups policies.

Their actions are directly taking away opportunities from sportsmen, and that is a problem.

 

[Pigsticker]

I’m just saying it seems like with all the opportunity and game to harvest, the agency you guys live to complain about must be doing a fine job.

Ya, because of landowners. You honestly think the Game and Fish is responsible for putting all of the food, water and cover on the landscape in a state that is 93% privately owned? They won't even supplement feed in hard winters with exception of extreme cases where a ranchers hay stack might be getting overrun. But hahahaha, thanks, you definitely made me chuckle!

 

[bravo]

Ya, because of landowners. You honestly think the Game and Fish is responsible for putting all of the food, water and cover on the landscape in a state that is 93% privately owned? They won't even supplement feed in hard winters with exception of extreme cases where a ranchers hay stack might be getting overrun. But hahahaha, thanks, you definitely made me chuckle!

Nope, I don’t. I think their job is to manage a healthy population for all ND’s citizens. I think they do a good job with what they have. I commend landowners who provide for wildlife, but supplemental feed doesn’t do a whole lot for deer in winter, it’s usually too little too late. They’re mainly living off fat stores at that point so conserving energy (good habitat) is key. Like you said, with 93% privately owned there’s not much they can do.

Do you think they should only be managing game on public land? Landowners should have 100% discretion of the wildlife on their land?

 

[bravo]

Fisheries do a fantastic job. Upland goes the same. I’ve been pretty vocal about things the department does right also.

The big game department is very sub par. That year where 70ish people shot deer out of our yard the department was made well aware there was an over population of deer (not on only yard but every wintering ground for deer around was 2-3x what was feasible there). The big game department isn’t proactive like other departments, it’s 100% reactive and more often than not it puts them behind the 8 ball.

Ignore the CRP & Soil bank acres. Where is the mismanagement? Should they employ a psychic to predict harsh winters or a boom in breeding? Should each township be its own unit so survey numbers are accurate down to the square mile?

 

[zoops]

I’m very fortunate. Our habitat we’ve built gives us a lot of opportunities for deer and even upland birds, and my relationships with guys are the reason for my opportunity elsewhere. But I can show you a good chunk of acres (60kish) that used to be a phone call and good to go or never posted that now are very little access granted because of the big game department/higher ups policies.

Their actions are directly taking away opportunities from sportsmen, and that is a problem.

So they posted their land or don't grant access anymore because of something game and fish did? Totally respect their right to not give access but that seems like a pretty childish excuse.

 

[wct12]

So they posted their land or don't grant access anymore because of something game and fish did? Totally respect their right to not give access but that seems like a pretty childish excuse.

Call it childish if you would like.. but it’s their private land and their choice. Having proper management of wildlife takes sportsmen and landowners, especially when 92-93% of land in North Dakota is private.

Landowners only chance to voice concerns/solutions to the department is at advisory board meetings. Advisory board meetings are a crock. It’s something the department does to check a box because they are required to. (They did the access meeting this winter in bismarck finally).

Unfortunately the only way landowners have a legitimate shot at the department listening is to control the one thing they can, and that is access. Am I for closing it all down? Absolutely not. But is it the hand they were dealt when they don’t get a seat at the table. Yes..

 

[wct12]

Ignore the CRP & Soil bank acres. Where is the mismanagement? Should they employ a psychic to predict harsh winters or a boom in breeding? Should each township be its own unit so survey numbers are accurate down to the square mile?

Habitat loss is a huge portion of this yes, but the department has a very, VERY minimal chance of getting that back to the way it was so why do they keep beating a dead horse instead of trying to be proactive instead of reactive like I said .

But to say things like supplemental feeding doesn’t do a whole lot to animal health.. in the livestock industry I adjust rations to help my cows through the winter. I don’t let them forage off grass quality hay and pick through standing corn stubble. They are supplementally fed something to not lose fat and body condition. Imagine if deer didn’t have to burn through those fat reserves early in the winter, or the toughest parts of it. The deer herds we supplementally feed in the winter almost always seem to have a higher survival rating then the ones that we can’t just do to distance from us (we roll a bale or 2 out with a pickup when we can or other sportsmen come get feed from us to do it but not near the quantity). Why not try and help?

Last year how many deer died due to the harsh winter? How many more deer does even 5-10% of that not dying or aborting fawns put back? Imagine if 60% of that 5-10% were does and had fawns this spring. Those are opportunities given back to sportsmen by the department being proactive instead of reactive and writing an article saying “we watched all these deer die due to conditions and starvation. By the way we reduced tags by another 5-10k. Sorry.”

Although we already dump thousands of dollars into habitat and feed almost every year, I would have 0 problem hitting that “round up or donate $5 to supplemental feed” when purchasing licenses.

 

[BrockW]

Habitat loss is a huge portion of this yes, but the department has a very, VERY minimal chance of getting that back to the way it was so why do they keep beating a dead horse instead of trying to be proactive instead of reactive like I said .

But to say things like supplemental feeding doesn’t do a whole lot to animal health.. in the livestock industry I adjust rations to help my cows through the winter. I don’t let them forage off grass quality hay and pick through standing corn stubble. They are supplementally fed something to not lose fat and body condition. Imagine if deer didn’t have to burn through those fat reserves early in the winter, or the toughest parts of it. The deer herds we supplementally feed in the winter almost always seem to have a higher survival rating then the ones that we can’t just do to distance from us (we roll a bale or 2 out with a pickup when we can or other sportsmen come get feed from us to do it but not near the quantity). Why not try and help?

Last year how many deer died due to the harsh winter? How many more deer does even 5-10% of that not dying or aborting fawns put back? Imagine if 60% of that 5-10% were does and had fawns this spring. Those are opportunities given back to sportsmen by the department being proactive instead of reactive and writing an article saying “we watched all these deer die due to conditions and starvation. By the way we reduced tags by another 5-10k. Sorry.”

Although we already dump thousands of dollars into habitat and feed almost every year, I would have 0 problem hitting that “round up or donate $5 to supplemental feed” when purchasing licenses.

You know deer aren’t livestock right? Completely different ruminant (completely different stomach). Not only that, it’s already known that supplemental/emergency winter feeding, while it can have some benefits to an individual deers chances of survival, it creates problems with surrounding natural forage, predation, deer behavior and land utilization, as well interrupting migrations in both mule deer and whitetail. It is not a natural thing to have that many deer continually using a small chunk of ground like that.

The game and fish sees high levels of rumen acidosis in tough winters from supplemental feeding. A sportsman’s club in eastern ND tried supplemental feeding in the winter of 23 and still lost a ton of deer. Did they fair marginally better than if they didnt feed? Perhaps. But if a fatal and contagious disease that can stay in the environment for 10-15 years is present, I think the wise thing to do in the long term is to try and prevent huge gathering of deer not encourage them.

Certainly can’t stop them all, and some natural spread will occur, absolutely. But just because natural spread occurs doesn’t mean we should encourage it and promote it just so one user group can hunt over bait.

If landowners care about deer herds. They should be working with the GF to get hay yards around silage piles and haystacks the best they can. The department has already spent 6 million dollars of hunter license dollars on 500 hay yard projects, since CWD was found in ND.

 

[BrockW]

Ignore the CRP & Soil bank acres. Where is the mismanagement? Should they employ a psychic to predict harsh winters or a boom in breeding? Should each township be its own unit so survey numbers are accurate down to the square mile?

Not to mention all of the wetlands that have been lost in the last 20 to 30 years. The wetlands index going forward doesn’t look promising either. I think I saw a recent figure that says at our current trajectory we’re gonna lose half of what we have now for wetlands in the next couple decades.

 

[wct12]

You know deer aren’t livestock right? Completely different ruminant (completely different stomach). Not only that, it’s already known that supplemental/emergency winter feeding, while it can have some benefits to an individual deers chances of survival, it creates problems with surrounding natural forage, predation, deer behavior and land utilization, as well interrupting migrations in both mule deer and whitetail. It is not a natural thing to have that many deer continually using a small chunk of ground like that.

The game and fish sees high levels of rumen acidosis in tough winters from supplemental feeding. A sportsman’s club in eastern ND tried supplemental feeding in the winter of 23 and still lost a ton of deer. Did they fair marginally better than if they didnt feed? Perhaps. But if a fatal and contagious disease that can stay in the environment for 10-15 years is present, I think the wise thing to do in the long term is to try and prevent huge gathering of deer not encourage them.

Certainly can’t stop them all, and some natural spread will occur, absolutely. But just because natural spread occurs doesn’t mean we should encourage it and promote it just so one user group can hunt over bait.

If landowners care about deer herds. They should be working with the GF to get hay yards around silage piles and haystacks the best they can. The department has already spent 6 million dollars of hunter license dollars on 500 hay yard projects, since CWD was found in ND.

I realize they aren’t deer Brock. Does every living organism need some form of nutrition in there? Yes. Does nutrition help all forms of life?.. yes. Is better nutrition more beneficial? Yes.

If you want to head north I can show you however many wintering grounds for whitetails you would like. 90% of these deer do not leave a section of land, and the 10% that do do it to go to a slough for thermal cover and cover right back to that feed source in the winter. I can show you tracks after a fresh snow where deer travel for miles (10-15 miles to wintering grounds up here past land that has fantastic thermal cover just for a better food source, even if it isn’t a hay yard or elevator.)

Predation travels to where ever deer herds are in North Dakota. When we kill 1 pack calling with thermals another pack moves in within a few days. I’ll get 50 trail cam pics of coyote packs a day, Then nothing for 5 days and bam.. another pack shows up. Prey animals travel to food sources, predators follow pretty to food, even in 100% natural settings.

I’ve said I understand the acidosis thing to you I don’t know how many times. How many times have I called for the department to go dump 2,500 bushels of corn out because that version of supplemental feeding will solve all the worlds problems?.. never. I even state earlier in this thread that when we do we usually use a couple different forms of hay, very little grain, and move snow so they can graze beans and corn on their own. I’ve never said winterkill goes to 0, hell, I even shot pretty low in my opinion at 5-10% increased survival odds in the thread you quoted.

If you as a sportsmen cared about deer herds, you would be willing to work with the department to provide good supplemental feed. Instead you’re so focused on a disease that has killed possibly 1 deer in North Dakota, has caused no MASSIVE die offs (maybe it contributes a bit to winter kill numbers in Sask or Alberta, areas where winter is just as hard or harder then here and they have more thermal cover), and is a possibility to be detrimental to the deer herds health. You’re using a possibility, instead of what’s directly in front of you. CWD isn’t causing massive population declines in high prevalence areas, maybe slight decline more so then just the natural lifecycle, but I can show you massive decline in North Dakota’s deer herds due to starvation and winter kill, and I would like to keep the population high enough and healthy enough that in 10-15 years there is even enough of a herd that we can still be talking about CWD (I wish we could eradicate it from the state but we can’t) instead of just talking about the time we used to be able to have 55,000 tags in North Dakota 10 years prior and how that number dropped by 200% again due to habitat loss and winter kills.

 

[wct12]

Not to mention all of the wetlands that have been lost in the last 20 to 30 years. The wetlands index going forward doesn’t look promising either. I think I saw a recent figure that says at our current trajectory we’re gonna lose half of what we have now for wetlands in the next couple decades.

Do you happen to have that study Brock? Not saying you’re lying or anything like that. I’m genuinely curious because I don’t want to see a decline that at all either, and was wondering if it has something to do with easements coming out or what the driving factors are