1000 doe permits

[sage_mule]

in unit 39? Did I read that right? How long have they been doing that?

 

[tagsoup]

I'd say close to 10 years or more. I think they use to give out closer to 1200.

 

[Yoyak]

Seems crazy doesn't it? Why kill so many factories?

 

[swampmule]

Well with no workers you don't need all the Factories.
The Idaho Fish $ Game has seen to that.


The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.

 

[greatbasin]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-11-11 AT 10:36PM (MST)[p]>in unit 39? Did I
>read that right? How
>long have they been doing
>that?

IDF&G has been selling huge amounts of doe tags as long as I can remember. I can't even tell you what year it was when I first noticed this, but I spoke up on this website...bet it was in '95 after the die off of '94. F&G took a lot of blame during that severe winter and the ensuing die off through the media outlets in Boise. F&G would much rather kill too many deer than risk another PR fiasco like that.

BTW, On top of the 1000 controlled tags you have forgot to count the other antlerless hunts going on every year in 39. There's the October youth antlerless general season, the November either sex archery season and don't forget the September general antlerless muzzleloader season. I'm sure all of those hunts add considerably to the 1000 figure you noticed.

 

[BPKHunter]

Including General Youth, Muzz, Archery, and the doe draw tags, 906 does were taken in 2010. The question is what is the carrying capacity vs the population. If the population is above the carrying capacity and we have a bad winter then, BOOM the population get's destroyed. Just because we don't shoot them doesn't mean they don't die anyway.

I agree, in this unit that number seems high and I would like to hear a biologists explanation for the number, especially when they have control over the draw tags. Did anyone notice that the much smaller unit 32 kills even more does in the special draw. 445 vs 395.

It would be nice to have reasonable population estimates. Anyone willing to chip in a little more so Fish and Game can afford the necessary counts? Otherwise, we could write a hell of a lot more citations for OHV abuse to pay for it.

 

[sage_mule]

Wow, the number really surprised me. I guess I haven't looked at the antlerless controlled hunt regs for a while.

IDFG made an extra $8,255 in entry fees this year on this hunt. I'm not sure if it's worth it.

I like the factory and workers analogy.

 

[leet]

I have only lived in Id. for a few years, but I have not seen any units that could stand that kind of antlerless kill! What the hell id IDFG thinking?

 

[beavis14]

leet it is simple $$$$$$$$$$$$ i doubt there are 1000 doe in the whole darned unit now

 

[Pre64]

"I agree, in this unit that number seems high and I would like to hear a biologists explanation for the number, especially when they have control over the draw tags."

Me too.

 

[BPKHunter]

There are WAY more than a 1000 does in that unit, despite all the concerns here. Looking at the 2009(most recent available) statewide mule deer report, they kill less than half as many does as they do bucks and have been in line with the harvest from just prior to the 92 winter kill. For about 5 years after that even, the amount of antlerless harvest was dropped to under 100 to rebuild the herd. These numbers seem to say that they do not want another catastrophic winter event and would rather keep the overall herd size in check. The buck harvest has bounced between 1500-2500 since 95, which is less than the ave of about 2500-3000 before that. They don't have population data, but they do have what appears to be strong average over winter fawn survival, low doe mortality, and a buck:doe ratio of around 15-20% for the past 10 years.

I would argue that the winter carrying capacity of that unit has gone down significantly over the past 20 years, so I would expect the herd carrying capacity may have also. If this is true we simply can't carry the deer so why not let kids and meat hunters do it. Maybe I'm wrong and I again would like to hear it from a biologist, but maybe it just is what it is??

I do expect that we got hit hard last winter and would like to see the harvest reduced, but I will guess unless old man winter hits hards and concentrates them by the 30th, the harvest will be low this year across the board.

Here is a link to the wildlife reports available: https://research.idfg.idaho.gov/wildlife/Wildlife Technical Reports/Forms/Show All Reports.aspx