Cranbrook Whities

[#49]

An argument seems to be able to be made for both sides,but my observations FWIF is that in the WK whitetail #s are way down from 7-10 yrs ago.Unless you count town deer because thats the only place to see them

[Whonnock Boy]

Winner, winner, whitetail doe dinner.

Wasn't the intent of the two doe limit to reduce the whitetail population?

Mission accomplished so now it's been reduced back to one doe.

Very high populations of whitetail among struggling mule deer numbers isn't good for mule deer.

SSS

[Fisher-Dude]

If people want to help mule deer, there are three drivers:

1.) Habitat work (can happen)
2.) Kill piles and piles of female cats to drive the species into obliteration - even this drastic action may produce mixed results as compensatory mortality tends to even things out, unless done in concert with 1.) above. (will never happen)
3.) Shoot whitetails (can happen)

If people want to manage for high whitetail populations, then they will have to make the choice to sacrifice mule deer to do so.

And if that's what people decide, then so be it, but they need to know the outcomes of their decision before making it. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this situation.

[HarryToolips]

Maybe you are new to hunting only within the past 5-10 years .?.. because yes sir trail cams don't lie ... I even have a few set up in your neck of the woods on the other side of the lake around that fire and I saw deer but not 20-30 a day not once this year

You are correct sir, I started hunting in 2009, and that is when I really started paying attention to deer numbers....from my observations, the whitetails have adapted, yes certain parts of region 4 there has been a noticable decrease, but like SSS said, MOE mission accomplished..where I have hunted around region 8 however, which covers alot of different parts of the region, the numbers I see are for the most part stable...in one area of winter range this year in an agricultural area, in March I counted 350-400 whitetails in one large plot of land - not an excaggeration....in another part of region 8, (8-01, 8-09) in the general area of where your talking about, in early Nov my parnter and I harvested a 4 pt muley - that day we counted 12 WT and 38 muleys in 4 hours of hunting...it's not nessisarilly as dire as some think..

[HarryToolips]

Wasn't the intent of the two doe limit to reduce the whitetail population?

Mission accomplished so now it's been reduced back to one doe.

Very high populations of whitetail among struggling mule deer numbers isn't good for mule deer.

SSS

Bingo.......

[Dannybuoy]

If people want to help mule deer, there are three drivers:

1.) Habitat work (can happen)
2.) Kill piles and piles of female cats to drive the species into obliteration - even this drastic action may produce mixed results as compensatory mortality tends to even things out, unless done in concert with 1.) above. (will never happen)
3.) Shoot whitetails (can happen)

If people want to manage for high whitetail populations, then they will have to make the choice to sacrifice mule deer to do so.

And if that's what people decide, then so be it, but they need to know the outcomes of their decision before making it. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this situation.

Unless you want to believe the bio's and that Geist character that are not convinced that WT and Mule deer compete for habitat ...... I got that from the Idaho mule deer management web site

[Dannybuoy]

Bingo.......

So it would appear that your Bingo is busted ... hmmmmm

[Fisher-Dude]

Unless you want to believe the bio's and that Geist character that are not convinced that WT and Mule deer compete for habitat ...... I got that from the Idaho mule deer management web site

Habitat competition isn't the driver. Nowhere did I mention that.

The driver is the whitetails keeping the predator load high while mule deer are in decline. In a traditional mule deer population absent whitetail, the predator population will fluctuate with the mule deer, giving the mule deer a chance to recover when preds dip.

When whitetail show up, predator populations can dine on WT as a secondary or even primary prey while MD decline, and that keeps MD on the decline as the preds stay high.

Read this: http://www.cfr.washington.edu/classe...binson2002.pdf

When we combine poor MD habitat, high preds, and high WTs, it's the perfect storm to drive MD down, down, down.

[hunter1947]

WT are down in lots of regions in the EK that I have hunted for 47 years they still are stable within lots of EK regions

What I have seen within a few EK regions on my time spent in these region is around about a 20% reduction on WT deer 20 trail
cams out tell what is..

I could not spend the time out there this year to observe but my trail cams did my work for me just a few pictures from so many
that I had on my trail cams..

Its the mule deer reduction that I have seen this year there down in numbers from last year EK need a game bioligist that knows
his stuff in order to increase the population of mule deer and do whatever it takes ..


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[hunter1947]

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