Question about doe harvest

[lol]

Best I can tell we've got about 5 doe I see regularly on cam on our 50 acres. I'm sure there's a couple more I've not seen. I've seen probably a dozen bucks passing through with 3 or 4 being seen regularly. Neighboring property is national forest which goes for miles north and east of the property. What I'm wondering is with the low density would it be detrimental if my son takes a doe, or will we draw replacement deer from the surrounding forest?

 

[fatboy at heart]

If the bag limit allows it. Let him shoot a doe. Definitely consider food plots to catch the attention of any passing by. Winter wheat,turnips,oats or sugar beets. Would be good choices

 

[timberjack86]

Fire away buddy! One won't hurt and it would do him good!

 

[BSK]

As long as doe harvests on the adjoining National Forest land are not high, then yes, a doe taken from your property can easily be replaced through immigration. It's called a "doe sink." When does are harvested from a property with better habitat than the surrounding properties, does will shift in from those surrounding properties to fill the void. The key to this process is the property where the does are being harvested has to be better quality habitat than the surrounding properties, and the surrounding properties need to be experiencing a low doe harvest.

 

[lol]

As long as doe harvests on the adjoining National Forest land are not high, then yes, a doe taken from your property can easily be replaced through immigration. It's called a "doe sink." When does are harvested from a property with better habitat than the surrounding properties, does will shift in from those surrounding properties to fill the void. The key to this process is the property where the does are being harvested has to be better quality habitat than the surrounding properties, and the surrounding properties need to be experiencing a low doe harvest.

If those are the factors to consider then we're probably alright. Thanks!

 

[BSK]

If those are the factors to consider then we're probably alright. Thanks!

Back when QDM was first being studied and tested, we ran several experiments where we attempted to shoot out a doe population on private properties. What happened was all the deer we removed each year were replaced by immigration of low-dominance does from surrounding areas. We found we literally could not shoot out a localized doe population. However, there are two critical components to our findings. First, this was back in the day when NOBODY was shooting does. Does were still held as sacred cows at the time. Hunters/managers will still stuck in the Restoration Phase of deer management. So we were able to take out so many does and still have them replaced every year because doe populations on surrounding properties were over-populated, or at least had long-established social dominance orders in their doe populations. Does low on the social order had no place to go to "move up on the social ladder." By opening up a big niche in the doe density on the studied properties, we gave these does wanting social mobility a place to move in and establish their own social group where they were at the top of the ladder.

However, as we continued to study these populations, we found two major problems with this extreme-doe-harvest practice. First, if the neighbors suddenly DO starting shooting does, now you no longer have excess does from neighboring properties to shift into the monitored property and fill the void of harvested does. Continued high doe harvest in this situation will flat out knock the doe population out in short order. Second, when does do move in from neighboring properties, they are usually mid-aged does of low social status. Continuing this practice for several years and you end up with the same problem with the doe age structure as you would with the buck age structure if you over-harvested bucks. In essence, you end up with a doe population that is extremely young. The oldest doe on the property could be just a 3 1/2 year-old, and the majority of does are 2 1/2s and yearlings. Just as having a lack of older bucks on a property causes social dynamics problems, having too young of a doe age structure also causes social dynamics problems. Having matriarchical old does in the population appears to be critical to the over-all function of a local population.

 

[lol]

We're surrounded by South CNF which doesn't allow doe harvest outside archery which helps. It's basically wilderness east of me all the way into western north carolina. The main issue is density but I think outside of acorn season, we have the best habitat in the vicinity. The premise of everything I'm doing habitat wise is to draw deer out of the forest.

The social dynamics are interesting. I've got a pair of does that hang out on one side of my property, probably a momma and one of her offspring. On the other side I've got one old doe and a couple or three young does that appear and disappear and I wonder if that old doe is keeping the others away. She's not always around but when she is I don't see the others. That whole side of the property doesn't seem to have any "resident" does and it's the part that by far has the most deer activity on the entire property. The does that are there seem to avoid each other.