Post by Woody Williams on Sept 25, 2005 12:20:09 GMT -5
Will QDM Destroy Deer Hunting?
By Jim Slinsky
In the "Land of Make Believe" let’s imagine I purchased 1 square mile of wooded habitat. Undoubtedly, I would quickly run out and buy an ATV with all the ground attachments. Land would be cleared and food plots would be planted. Soon, I would be cutting down trees and opening the forest floor to daylight. Leaf litter would be burned and the soil supplemented with lime. Come hunting season I would be culling spikes, letting the relatives shoot a few does and protecting some nice bucks for next year. I would praise myself as a good steward of the land and defend my habitat work as benefiting all wildlife. My only concerns would be poachers and predators. If I am vigilant, I could have trophy deer for the rest of my life.
All of this might just be human nature. This is the way of true, quality deer management. On a rich man’s salary, it would be easy to get sucked into the program.
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) was founded in 1988 by Joe Hamilton, a wildlife biologist for the Nature Conservancy. (The Nature Conservancy? Hmmm?) It was the outgrowth of attempting to protect some South Carolina land from deer over-browsing. It is true that there was a time when not shooting does was carved in stone. We have long learned that some does must be taken. That nagging question has always been exactly how many does should be harvested and how many should be left.
The justification for hunting for the past 100 years has been driven by the concept of "compensatory losses." In the simplest terms hunters are permitted to harvest the surplus animals that will probably succumb from the lack of food and overpopulation. Instead of experiencing excessive natural mortality, hunters reduce the herd size each year and put the surplus animals in their freezers. This is easy stuff.
The complication arises when special interest agendas dictate that we go beyond compensatory losses and decrease the herd size to all-time low levels to fit a political agenda. When flowers for environmentalists and trees for forestry interests become more important than deer for hunters, we/they have a problem. A program must be created and adopted to convince hunters to shoot themselves out of business. The battle cry becomes QDM.
In all fairness, QDM wasn’t created to be corrupted as an anti-hunting political tool. However, it has been adopted perfectly by those who wish to significantly decrease deer numbers and the hunters who pursue them.
The truth is QDM has merit on private land where strict controls can be applied and results can be monitored and modified. On public land QDM is too complicated to administer and quickly leads to over-harvest and a severe reduction in total herd size. Furthermore, QDM over-emphasizes trophy deer and promotes antler worship. These results can quickly reduce the number of hunters participating in our grand tradition. This is a negative and not a positive for our future.
I am especially concerned by the hype that the QDMA utilizes to sell and justify their program. QDMA claims there are 33 million whitetails in America and our buck to doe ratios can be as high as 5 does for every buck. Both of these statements are severe exaggerations and I will write those columns to expose their sins. It is totally unacceptable that hunters are making these statements.
When we sort it all out, QDM is a valid program for large landowners that are trophy hunters, but have a tendency to allow their deer populations to get out of control. On public land throughout this country deer populations are already substantially lower than on private land. In our big hunting states like PA, Wisconsin and Michigan public land hunters can be 50% of the hunting population and 75% of the political clout. Adopting QDM principles to reduce deer numbers further on public land will have a disastrous effect on retention and recruitment of public land hunters and the clout of the hunting lobby.
The bottom line is some states have a lot of mouths to feed. Maximum sustained yield is a far better approach in these instances. We can do some things to get a few bucks into older age classes. Over-harvesting our does is not one of them.
Frankly, the "Land of Make Believe" does not exist for the vast majority of our hunters. We must deal in realities if we expect our hunting tradition to survive. In reality, we need public land to have adequate, huntable populations of whitetail deer, now and for all posterity.
By Jim Slinsky
In the "Land of Make Believe" let’s imagine I purchased 1 square mile of wooded habitat. Undoubtedly, I would quickly run out and buy an ATV with all the ground attachments. Land would be cleared and food plots would be planted. Soon, I would be cutting down trees and opening the forest floor to daylight. Leaf litter would be burned and the soil supplemented with lime. Come hunting season I would be culling spikes, letting the relatives shoot a few does and protecting some nice bucks for next year. I would praise myself as a good steward of the land and defend my habitat work as benefiting all wildlife. My only concerns would be poachers and predators. If I am vigilant, I could have trophy deer for the rest of my life.
All of this might just be human nature. This is the way of true, quality deer management. On a rich man’s salary, it would be easy to get sucked into the program.
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) was founded in 1988 by Joe Hamilton, a wildlife biologist for the Nature Conservancy. (The Nature Conservancy? Hmmm?) It was the outgrowth of attempting to protect some South Carolina land from deer over-browsing. It is true that there was a time when not shooting does was carved in stone. We have long learned that some does must be taken. That nagging question has always been exactly how many does should be harvested and how many should be left.
The justification for hunting for the past 100 years has been driven by the concept of "compensatory losses." In the simplest terms hunters are permitted to harvest the surplus animals that will probably succumb from the lack of food and overpopulation. Instead of experiencing excessive natural mortality, hunters reduce the herd size each year and put the surplus animals in their freezers. This is easy stuff.
The complication arises when special interest agendas dictate that we go beyond compensatory losses and decrease the herd size to all-time low levels to fit a political agenda. When flowers for environmentalists and trees for forestry interests become more important than deer for hunters, we/they have a problem. A program must be created and adopted to convince hunters to shoot themselves out of business. The battle cry becomes QDM.
In all fairness, QDM wasn’t created to be corrupted as an anti-hunting political tool. However, it has been adopted perfectly by those who wish to significantly decrease deer numbers and the hunters who pursue them.
The truth is QDM has merit on private land where strict controls can be applied and results can be monitored and modified. On public land QDM is too complicated to administer and quickly leads to over-harvest and a severe reduction in total herd size. Furthermore, QDM over-emphasizes trophy deer and promotes antler worship. These results can quickly reduce the number of hunters participating in our grand tradition. This is a negative and not a positive for our future.
I am especially concerned by the hype that the QDMA utilizes to sell and justify their program. QDMA claims there are 33 million whitetails in America and our buck to doe ratios can be as high as 5 does for every buck. Both of these statements are severe exaggerations and I will write those columns to expose their sins. It is totally unacceptable that hunters are making these statements.
When we sort it all out, QDM is a valid program for large landowners that are trophy hunters, but have a tendency to allow their deer populations to get out of control. On public land throughout this country deer populations are already substantially lower than on private land. In our big hunting states like PA, Wisconsin and Michigan public land hunters can be 50% of the hunting population and 75% of the political clout. Adopting QDM principles to reduce deer numbers further on public land will have a disastrous effect on retention and recruitment of public land hunters and the clout of the hunting lobby.
The bottom line is some states have a lot of mouths to feed. Maximum sustained yield is a far better approach in these instances. We can do some things to get a few bucks into older age classes. Over-harvesting our does is not one of them.
Frankly, the "Land of Make Believe" does not exist for the vast majority of our hunters. We must deal in realities if we expect our hunting tradition to survive. In reality, we need public land to have adequate, huntable populations of whitetail deer, now and for all posterity.
