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Deer Total Killed This Deer Season!!

ronnycl said:
with hunters reporting fewer deer sighting and TWRA issuing more depredation permits to ag farmers = fewer deer to hunt and harvest. No Harvard grad here needed to figure this one out! If TWRA could kill all deer in cwd zone they would.
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I don't understand the cwd approach. We combat a disease that we are afraid is going to kill alot of deer by killing all the deer
 
It's hard for me to believe that there were only 10 deer killed on the Fort this year. I know it was closed most of November but there were still areas open to active duty during that time. Surely something is skewed with that number.
 
redblood said:
I don't understand the cwd approach. We combat a disease that we are afraid is going to kill alot of deer by killing all the deer
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A lower density herd spreads the disease slower. Some biologists agree with this approach, and some do not.

I am a manager who does not. First, the disease still spreads. It will continue to spread across the entire whitetails' range eventually. Nature will have to work this one out. Making deer hunting so unpleasant by removing all the deer will do nothing by drive the hunters - the true managers - out of the process.
 
backyardtndeer said:
Interesting numbers. Down pretty significantly when you figure total harvest for 2020-21 in my county was over 1700 deer and 2021-22 is around 1200. Acorns this year in this area of West Tennessee were NOT any heavier than the 2020 season.
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Many (if not most) areas of West TN are less effected than Middle TN by whatever the acorn crop.

But on another hand, many West TN hunters might not adapt as well as many Middle TN hunters, simply because so many farther west tend to hunt more from permanent blinds positioned overlooking large ag fields. Even with less "woods" in West TN, a moderate acorn crop would cause fewer deer to feed in ag fields.

I still think "statewide" (including West TN) the number one reason for a lower deer harvest in 2021 was the huge acorn crop.

But collective other issues may have added up to even more significance than the acorn crop!

Those collective issues include:

1) Less deer hunting for a multitude of reasons . . . .
but high on the reason list is CWD-related issues.

2) Warm weather around Christmas which increased late-season food sources for deer, while decreasing caloric needs, i.e. decreased late-season deer movement.

3) Hunters' non-adaptive hunting habits, i.e. hunting more from permanent comfortable stands over-looking fields & food plots, this year, void of deer, which brings us back to the acorn crop & warm weather keeping those deer out those fields & food plots.
 
BSK said:
A lower density herd spreads the disease slower. Some biologists agree with this approach, and some do not.

I am a manager who does not. First, the disease still spreads. It will continue to spread across the entire whitetails' range eventually. Nature will have to work this one out. Making deer hunting so unpleasant by removing all the deer will do nothing by drive the hunters - the true managers - out of the process.
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has there ever been a cwd response that has actually worked?
 
redblood said:
has there ever been a cwd response that has actually worked?
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No. CWD is here to stay and it will continue to spread. The ONLY true answer is to let Nature work it out. Eventually, the few animals that are truly immune (through "luck of the draw" random genetic mutations) will make up a larger and larger percentage of the population. But the fact CWD doesn't kill quickly is a huge problem. This dramatically slows the process of weeding out those susceptible.

Thousand year-old writings by early sheep herders describe a disease that is unquestionably Scrappie (where CWD came from). Yet we still have sheep don't we? And there is no treatment or cure for Scrappie either.
 

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