Stop with the logic.  You might confuse someone.

Do they eat coyotes?

Wolves don't eat coyotes , at least not the females, they breed with them and produce a more efficient deer killing machine. The last I looked there wasn't either a season length or bag limit on how many deer a coyote or wolf was allowed in a year.

ORIGINAL: MuskyMastr

I can't take it any more, I once again invite anyone to take a walk near westline in 2F and tell me that the habitat is overbrowsed and that populations are being suppressed by poor habitat and subsequent poor recruitment.

I met a predator hunter up there 2 weeks ago, since the first of november, with his dogs, he has killed 40 coyotes off of the same mountain, (along with a huge pile of grey fox). I saw the photos of the hides before he sold them, and he had two in the truck the day I met him. What do you suppose those yotes have been eating? Poor fawn crops of undernourished deer?

 
I’ll take you up on that. Maybe you can show me something I have never been able to document before.
 
Frequently what is growing in the area doesn’t show a lot of browsing because most of what you can find is so poor as a deer food they don’t eat it. If you want to see what affect deer browsing is having we will go in May when all the new growth is covering the forest floor. We will take some pictures to document what is growing on the forest floor. Then we will go back to the same stops at the end of the summer and see what is still there after the deer have been eating 5-7 pounds of that new growth every day over the summer.
 
A number of years ago I took a newspaper reporter out in the spring and he took a picture of thousands of new seedlings on the forest floor in May. We went back to that spot at the end of September and I offered him $50.00 for each seedling of a nutritious deer browse species he could find within the frame of the picture he had taken in the spring. He couldn’t find even one, because the deer had eaten every one of them over the summer.
 
Things have improved some over the past few years and some seedling are now making through the summer but we are still a long ways from having suitable deer habitat to sustain more deer. In many areas there simply isn’t anything suitable for deer to eat by the end of the summer so you are right and you will not see much evidence of deer browsing.
 
Many people have no idea what is good deer browse or what is so poor a deer will not eat it. Then they go out, see a bunch of stuff deer don’t eat that isn’t browsed and make the assumption there is lots of food and no deer to eat it, when in reality there are no deer because there is no deer food even though there is lots of stuff within reach of any deer that would exist there.
 
I have also seen some areas where there is some pretty good browse on the ridges and plateaus where deer can’t live during periods of deep winter snows. That was a mystery to me for a while until I discovered that the deer couldn’t impact those areas during many winters and thus some of the browse did make it past the deer. But, as you moved back down the ridges into the wintering grounds all of the suitable deer browse species disappeared. In some cases at the end of a harsh winter I would find deer that starved to death within just three or four hundred yards of all the winter browse they could have eaten. But, even though there was a lot of good browse nearby it was as inaccessible to them as if it had been on the moon. They just couldn’t get to it. It doesn’t matter how much food there in if it isn’t also in the right places for deer to use it when they need it. 
 
I am also sure there are plenty of coyotes in the Westline area and that is without a doubt another factor that will limit deer populations. There is no restriction on how many coyotes hunters and trappers can take so it isn’t like anyone id doing anything to encourage their numbers, it is just a factor that will probably always limit deer numbers, especially in poor or marginal habitats.    
 
You can send me a pm and we will set up a time for you to show me all of this good deer food that isn’t getting browsed. My district noW extends up to almost Westline and I am confident the WCO in charge of that area will not mind me going there. In fact I will probably invite him to go along for the day.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

ORIGINAL: S-10

Per the PGC, the deer population has decreased since 2001.
Per the PGC, the coyote population has increased since 2001.
The deer make up a significant portion of a coyotes diet.
Therefore, the percent of the deer population that the coyotes kill is greater today than in 2001.

 
I agree with all of those statements.
 
What do you propose be done to change those facts?
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

ORIGINAL: deerfly

Sure it did until they cut the harvest and allowed the extra over winter deer destroy their food supply. That is the entire point.
 

But the point you were trying to make is actually pointless since it is based on your personal opinion rather than on the facts. The data clearly shows that the OWDD did not increase from 1991 to 2001 since the buck harvests remained stable during that period. The fact that the habitat in 2G supported over 15 DPSM for 11 years proves beyond a doubt that the habitat in 2G can support at least 15 DPSM and still be below the MSY CC of the habitat. Furthermore, it is ridiculous for you to claim the habitat was controlling the herd during that period when hunters were harvesting,on average, over 5 DPSM every year. The only way you can claim the habita is controlling the herd is if the herd remains stable with zero deer harvested by hunters.!!!!

If we hadn’t reduced the antlerless allocations, and harvests, we wouldn’t have experienced as much habitat damage; the remaining deer would have had more over winter food and thus produced more healthy fawns that could survive the next spring. If that had happened we probably wouldn’t have experienced as much of a natural population decline and have more deer today.

Wrong again!! Recruitment rates have never been a problem in any of our WMUs and you can't provide one iota of PGC data that shows that recruitment rates were a problem anywhere in the state. After many years of over browsing the doe in ELK Co. were still recruiting 1.1 fawns/adult doe in 1983 which is much more than would be necessary to replace the deer lost to non-hunting mortality. So once again I have proved you have no idea what you are talkng about.

 
The fact is you don’t know how many over winter deer there were in any of those years. Nor do you have a clue whether there has been a change in the recruitment rates.
 
Research has proven that there is tremendous variance in fawn recruitment rates from even one year to the next based on the fall mast crops and/or winter snow conditions. 
 
For you or anyone else to suggest otherwise only shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. But, a lack of knowledge has never slowed you down in the past and I don’t expect it will now either.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

RSB

If they were protecting that many deer in the unhunted areas there would have to be hundreds if not thousands of deer per square mile on those unhunted lands for them to harvest that many deer where they are hunting them.

Ok math expert show me the math to back that statement up.

The fact is you don’t know how many over winter deer there were in any of those years. Nor do you have a clue whether there has been a change in the recruitment rates.

Wrong once again. The harvest data clearly shows that the OWDD remained stable as did recruitment rates during that period.

[esearch has proven that there is tremendous variance in fawn recruitment rates from even one year to the next based on the fall mast crops and/or winter snow conditions. /quote]


However, in the past ,the PGC accounted for those variance based on the roadkill embryo data. If WCOs are no longer reporting that data than the PGC has no idea what the recruitment rates might be and therefore they have no idea how many doe tags need to be allocated.

You are the one throwing out the challenge so why don’t you go ahead and prove I was wrong in what I said?

I already proved you wrong once today and don’t feel like wasting all evening repeatedly proving you don’t know what you are talking about. Most people wiling to be objective have already figured it out anyway.

R.S. Bodenhorn

You never proved me wrong about anything. You just danced around the subject whick forced me to post again but with just the B.S. numbers you threw out. You posted the hunderd or thousand DPSM necessary, now do the math to prove it.

I have a cousin, who's girlfriends uncle, knows a man who's dad works at the turnpike and talked to a truck driver who's best friends ex-wife is dating a towtruck operator who fixed a tire on a truck that had a secret compartment full of grey wolves behind the regular load of conterfeit t-shirts for a ZZ Top concert. He said the last stop was the comm garage and heard them growl....WF

RSB..

If musky takes the challenge to show off this area for great re-generation and habitat near Westline with no deer and 40 some coyotes .. let me know.. I'd love to come along... I have already seen you disprove others who have claimed the same thing about their "good habitat area"



As for wolves.. I agree with Bings ===

Which one holds the white cane and which one gets the dog ?

ORIGINAL: bingsbaits

Now that would be a real fun time. Nature walk with Doc and RSB...

ORIGINAL: RSB

ORIGINAL: World Famous

Game Comm brought them in secretly to eat more deer; not sure how much damage they do to the yote population. I'm really not qualified to answer that aspect of the decision to import them. Probably another of my mistakes...WF

Are you nuts? Where do you come up with such nonsense?
 
Where is there one shred of evidence of anyone EVER releasing ANY gray wolves in this state, other than perhaps some citizen that might have released a hybrid they had licensed as a dog?
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

 
"Lighten up Francis," said Sgt. Hulka.
 
It was obviously a joke.  I guess everyone figured that except you.
 
 

ORIGINAL: RSB

ORIGINAL: S-10

RSB

If they were protecting that many deer in the unhunted areas there would have to be hundreds if not thousands of deer per square mile on those unhunted lands for them to harvest that many deer where they are hunting them.

Ok math expert show me the math to back that statement up.

You are the one throwing out the challenge so why don’t you go ahead and prove I was wrong in what I said?
 
I already proved you wrong once today and don’t feel like wasting all evening repeatedly proving you don’t know what you are talking about. Most people wiling to be objective have already figured it out anyway.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

You haven't proven anyone wrong regarding the harvest rate of 2.5+ buck and here is the data that proves you are flat out wrong.


% of 2.5+ % Total Harvest
2.5 buck 71%=43,114 25%
3.5 buck 21%= 10,090 7%
4.5 buck 5% = 2,402 2%
5.5+ buck 3%=1,441 1%


If the vast majority of 1.5 and 2,5 buck survived as the study showed, then the majority of bucks harvested would be 3.5 and 4.5+ buck. But the data from 2006 shows that 71% of the 2.5+ buck harvested were 2.5 yrs. and 3.5+ buck comprised only 10% of the total buck harvest.

So, you are wrong again!!!!

ORIGINAL: S-10

Anyone who is capable of logical thinking would very quickly realize that since they are harvesting from 4 to 8 rimes as many deer per square mile, city streets and all, in those special regulations units as they are in the big woods unit they obviously are not protecting the deer and instead are killing them. If they were protecting that many deer in the unhunted areas there would have to be hundreds if not thousands of deer per square mile on those unhunted lands for them to harvest that many deer where they are hunting them.

I'am still waiting for him to do the math to support his contention of the hundreds if not thousands of DPSM necessary. As with any of his claims he always gives his opinions but is unable to do the simple math necessary to prove them. Perhaps because the math would show how wrong he is?

 
It was you who said that the special regulations units were only able to harvest the ten to eighteen deer per square mile each year, and year after year, because of all the areas hunters couldn’t go.
 
If that were true then you should go ahead and explain just how many deer they have per square mile on those lands that are 20% developed lands with virtually no deer habitat. Where hunters are harvesting an average of fifteen deer per square mile in units that are ten to twenty percent buildings and roads either they aren’t being protected in very many places or there are an awful lot of deer in those places they can hunt.
 
Unit 5C only has 965.53 square miles of forested land so that is all that would be considered as deer habitat with escape cover. They have had an average deer harvest of 32.14 deer per forested square mile yet you tell us the only reason they have that many deer is because of all the protected areas where hunters can’t harvest deer. If that is true, and since hunters rarely harvest even a third of the deer population even where they have full access to the land then they must have well over a hundred deer per square mile on those lands where all those deer you are talking about go to avoid being harvested.
 
What I was pointing out is just have ridicules it is to believe the reason the special regulations unit have so many deer is because they are protected form harvest. If where true then they wouldn’t be harvesting an average of fifteen deer per square mile unless there were literally hundreds of deer per square mile on some of those lands. If you didn’t either have a comprehension problem or were being honest, honorable and objective you would have recognized the point as what it was. The point was and still is that the deer aren’t being protected in those special regulations units they are being hammered by hunters and their populations are still high. In fact snipers in those units are still killing a lot of deer at night because hunters can’t even get enough to control the populations. Add those that the snipers kill and you can see just how hard it is to over harvest a deer population if hunters can kill that many and snipers are killing even more yet there are still more and more deer to harvest each year.
 
The fact is the deer are proving that hunters can’t over harvest their numbers where there is suitable habitat to sustain high deer numbers. The deer in the big woods units are also proving that if you under harvest them the population is not going to increase and very well might decline instead.
 
I think if hunters really were smart they would be demanding that deer be managed using the methods that are proven to result in sustainable high populations and harvests instead of the proven failed method of harvesting fewer to get more. Harvesting fewer to get more has been proven not to work yet hunters keep demanding to continue down that proven failure road time after time.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn