All year season would be great! I can see it now......... Full mount doe with the fawn half born...............
It's not that out of the question, currently, Greg. VA's (for one) urban season last until (I think) into APRIL.
So, would the year long season just be for overpopulated areas? Personally, I think a better solution is to have a 5 month season open to everyone with with a specific allotment of tags per weapon. For example: You could hunt all 5 months with a shotgun (MD) but you could only take (off the top of my head) 1 buck and 6 does (currently it is a 2 week season with 2 bucks, 10 does <2nd buck after taking at least 2 does>). As it is, now most firearms guys are looking for bucks first because they only have 2 weeks to get it done. Anyway, numbers could be adjusted by knowledgeable biologists but I think the 5 month season for all weapons would go a long way to solving an overpopulation problem. This is all predicated on a knowledgeable and well run program by DNR.
I just realized I did not answer the OP's question. While predators are few, they are losing habitat daily and that is a form of predator. That is why the urban hunts exists, they want the deer gone, or reduced to very managable levels so that BMW's do not run into them. Poaching has been and will always be part of the equation (sp). Just come on down and sit with me in my bow only county on opening day of gun season.
And where is this documentation? I'd love to see that study. What's funny is that when I go to an overpopulated area I never see less than 1 fawn per doe.....usually 2 or more.
http://www.qdma.com/what-we-do/articles/herd-management/social-stress/ I typed in 'fawn abandonment in overpopulated areas', and this is the first study that popped up. There's plenty of them, though. I've read several of them. From another (study).... So will the abandonment rate. I have more deer than most, here, and I rarely see twin fawns.
When I hunted in Lake county, Ill, it was definitely over populated. Maybe not 10X like that study, but there were way too many deer. I did see the social hierarchy (doe family units) like the study and most every doe had twin fawns. I believe that the does that I saw with only one fawn was due to being they're first time giving birth. Unlike the study, this was an area that was large (3000 + acres) with all crop fields and oak woods. A lot of food, not supplemental feed. Maybe an area can hold more deer than one thinks without being over populated?
Possibly. One thing I've observed here over the years is......it's not unusual at all to see does with NO fawns. And, like I said, twins are an even greater exception. I don't think we're highly over-populated (it's gotten BETTER every year I've hunted here). But, we probably have too many DPSM. Am I witnessing a slow change in the herd dynamics? Will I see more does with fawns in the future? Is most of what I'm seeing due to fawn abandonment? Are they just hiding all their fawns? I don't know. You'd think I'd see more on trailcam.....at least. I don't. I have cam pics (summer) of as many as eight does at a cam sight........and not a single fawn. I "maybe" have seen 3-4 doe fawns this year....and probably 2X that number of buck fawns. ALL fawn sightings are down this year, though. IMO, the herd here (sheer numbers) is better (= less deer) than I've ever witnessed. It'll be interesting to see the fawn numbers in the coming couple of seasons.
The problem lays in the time frame that someone realized that the herd numbers are suffering and when something actually gets done about it. Government bureaucracy at it's finest. By then it'll probably be too late. Also I would think it's very dangerous to let the numbers get to where they are visibly suffering. Any wildlife biologist will tell you that is a recipe for disaster. Think about it. Nature dictates that the strongest survive. So you have a healthy deer population. Now mother nature decides that the wolf population will go up because of this, now you start shooting deer until the number start to suffer. Those suffering number of deer still have a lot of wolves to feed.
I agree with this. Management is good, but can also be motivated by the wrong things...like $$$$ (tag sales). All I can say is that I am more than happy to abide by the laws until my family is going hungry. No way I would let my family go hungry with all those elk in the mountains. That said, I don't anticipate that ever happening.
