Wildlife stress

[Kentucky Windage]

We should start calling the game and fish constantly and report deer displaying behavior comparable to baiting and asking them if we can begin shooting them. #outlawdeer

 

[db-2]

I have been feeding deer by plots and bait for years and not just for the reason of hunting as i feed most of the year. Never took the bow off the wall holder this year.

Not sure how many deer die from CWD/versus weather. For me, since 98, when i began my plot and baiting i have killed 7 bucks with a bow over feed/plot and 3 mule deer by the rifle. Have over $1,000 into corn so far alone with the plots this year. Some alfalfa bales. Plots are all ate up or cover in snow.
Over those years not sure if i saved more deer by providing food over those that i kill from my feeding which caused CWD.
Game and fish has no idea even with all their book learning and i have no idea either. However, common sense does provide some answers for me. db

 

[KDM]

CWD?? Common sense suggests that if you had even a moderate CWD die off during the winter, there would be evidence of such. There would be carcasses and hair piles along with so many scavengers feeding on the dead deer that you would definitely notice them. It would be a coyote hunters wet dream. I have NEVER seen such evidence at ANY of the deer yarding locations in my area or even heard of such an event. Which is to say around all the farmers and ranchers hay piles or in my case, my back yard. Not one in the 13 years ND has had CWD. Now has there been dead deer in the hay piles.....yep. However, there has been no evidence that CWD killed them and I don't think they even check for it in the spring. Which brings up the question of "Why Not?". If a bucket of corn by a tree stand spreads CWD, so should the huge hay piles the farmers and ranchers have wouldn't you think? So for the time being, I'll keep doing what I'm doing until there is evidence to the contrary. Stay Safe!!

 

[BrokenBackJack]

Seems early for them to shed their antlers.

Looks like the rodents were already chewing on them.

 

[Ruffnd]

Looks like the rodents were already chewing on them.

Nope. They were shed last night.

 

[CatDaddy]

Looks like the rodents were already chewing on them.

Frosted tips. looks from afar like rodent chew but upon further inspection.....Just a really cool rack! Especially for an "urban" buck!

 

[LBrandt]

Wife noticed a doe come plowing by our house about 4:30 this afternoon which is really strange for our area, deer don't winter here. I think maybe yotes so I grab the 12 off the rack and sure enough a few min later 2 large herding dogs show up following the does trail. I discouraged them from following any more with a couple rounds of #4 over their heads and back home down the road they went. If happens again warden will be called. If there is one thing I will not let slide is dogs running deer. LB

 

[BrokenBackJack]

You should contact the warden anyways, so he finds out whose dogs they are and tells the owners the dogs can be shot for chasing deer.

 

[KDM]

The gang showed up a bit early today. Enjoy!

 

[CatDaddy]

The gang showed up a bit early today. Enjoy!

Christmas brunch!

 

[KDM]

Yeah. The cold is BRUTAL so I'm adding an extra serving this evening. They go through it pretty fast. I think there is 13 in the pic and a few had already come and gone by the time I snapped the pic. Sure is fun to watch'em though.

 

[db-2]

Got an email yesterday from game and fish about the harm i am causing the wildlife by feeding them. I will assume most of you may have gotten it to.

They suggested opening a path to fields that maybe did not get harvested, not work so there maybe grain on the ground to eat or open up any haybales that may be in the area for deer to eat on.
Will work on that by making sure it is open to a place where i know there is grain on the ground. For the most part they have already found their way there.
They stated they do not die from starvation but by freezing and to plant more cover.

Book learners. db

 

[LBrandt]

KDM do you feed corn or corn screenings? LB

 

[wjschmaltz]

They stated they do not die from starvation but by freezing and to plant more cover.

I guess I have a hard time disagreeing with this. Deer were essentially a timber species up until about 70 years ago. The Shelter Belt Program went into place from 1935-1942, likely none of them reached effectiveness for 20 years and then it took a while for dispersal to occur. I wasn't hunting deer in the 80's and early 90's but my uncles and grandpa sure talked it about it like the glory days. Even with the horrible winters in the late 90's, deer were very abundant then and into the early 2000s. I had something like 6 deer tags in 2006 along with all of my uncles and cousins. We should've been able to shoot more of them rats. Coincidently, that aligned with the peak of CRP acres in the state of approximately 3.4 million acres. Almost every shelter belt reached maturity by 2010 and the majority were removed thereafter. A lot of them went with the 2.3 million acres of CRP land that was planted into corn and soybeans over the last 15 years or so. Correlation does not always imply causation, but overall habitat in the state tracks very close to overall deer population, which seemed unchanged by major weather events for several decades up until recently.

As far as the CWD thing, I remain an onlooker from the outside. Is the NDFG now suggesting that CWD is causing deer die offs? That would be a major change in messaging from what I've heard from any state or federal agency. The message that I've always heard is slowing down the spread of the disease until more is known (I know that's a tough message to sell after what happened a few years ago); especially recently as it seems CWD as an actual cause of death seems rare. It seemed like the major concern was monitoring the zoonotic potential of CWD. If there is ever a zoonotic case of CWD that can be traced directly back to eating deer, the seasons will essentially be eliminated forever. They will not risk the liability of allowing people to hunt deer and dispose - so they will shut it down completely. A man that I consider a very trustworthy and intelligent man here in Alaska (he owns then Alaska Outdoor Forum, has written books on float hunting Alaska, worked as a guide for Buck Bowden) has sworn that his wife suffers from a form of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease from eating a confirmed CWD positive deer. His evidence is compelling. Eventually they will spread it to monkeys in a lab and it will be game over for deer hunting in places with confirmed CWD-positive deer IMO.

There's enough data (very good and very bad) from both sides of the argument to know they're both missing the mark on messaging.

 

[Allen]

To add to WJ's thoughts, if you have been planting trees of flavorful varieties, you already know deer browse the heck out of trees during the late fall through early spring each year 11-12 years ago I lost a cherry tree to a hungry doe and her fawns. Dang tree was a good 4 inches in diameter and 10 ft tall, she took it to the ground by morning. I can't even count how damn many trees I've lost to them over the years, but know it pales in comparison to tree losses of others. Ohio buckeyes, apple, pear, cherry, ash, conifers, are all on the menu for WT deer, to name just a few. The variety of what they eat ensures that they will have something in their stomach when they die. I would tend to agree that shelter is a bigger concern. And some shelter, like dense tree plantings, also provide great browse material.

 

[Freedom]

Already been transmitted to monkeys in a lab setting quite some time ago. Hard time believing one case with the amount of positive deer being eaten throughout the country you'd think there'd be numerous suspicious cases.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...wQFnoECCsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Hm3M14YBzgXsoERSwwMa7

 

[KDM]

Already been transmitted to monkeys in a lab setting quite some time ago. Hard time believing one case with the amount of positive deer being eaten throughout the country you'd think there'd be numerous suspicious cases.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1158&context=zoonoticspub&ved=2ahUKEwi33M777J38AhVDnGoFHQCMD_wQFnoECCsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Hm3M14YBzgXsoERSwwMa7

Keep in mind that in order to transmit CWD to monkeys, now pay attention......They had to inject CWD infected brain matter directly into the cerebral cavity of the monkeys. Did you get that? They injected the material inside the monkeys skulls. They did the same thing to mice. Just read the materials and methods section of that paper. The ones that were fed the material didn't show any symptoms. They could only detect the material. So if you shoot yourself in the brain with infected deer brain you might catch it and show symptoms. Otherwise, you have to eat infected deer brain and then you might catch it, but be without symptoms. Pretty extreme measures to go through to try and ban baiting if you ask me. Carry On.

 

[db-2]

Gotten to a point where it's hard to believe in anything written or stated.
Half-truth to support one's position are common without telling the whole story. 24-7 day cable news is the worse. Sometimes i believe they want to destroy this country and then they will pat themselves on their back.

As Freedom stated it's hard to believe when one uses common sense. Game and fish no difference.

Bidden and his fellow democrats. The border is secure and safe, and the list goes on. EV, may be wrong, but i cannot see them saving our world let alone surviving themselves. db

 

[Bullsnake]

have had a few deer and 20+pheasnats hanging around since the blizzards cleared out, had 2 small bucks in the yard over the weekend, both only had 1 horn already

 

[KDM]

To many deer coming into the backyard to tell one from the other now. I've got 10 in the yard right now finishing off the second batch of corn I threw out there since the first was gone by noon. (Grin) I've got 3 bucks that are bald and some of the smallest fawns I've seen in several years. WOW for tiny. It's such a blast to watch them paw the ground, each other, and just be deer. Well it's time to do chores and toss out the last of the corn for today. Stay Safe and Warm out there.