Thread: Herd management and Playing our part

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

@MB About a year ago I rang up DOC Whanganui to inquire and clarify a paper road/access. They told me it made a change because usually it was people calling them to ask where to go looking for deer. They then said "But we don't ever tell them because we want somewhere to hunt too".... True story...

I spent about half an hour between 2 DOC offices trying to get a hunting permit for a restricted hunting area. Far out. Two offices that couldnt find it on their own website when I was spelling it out then claiming it was under another office. I reckon that was a DOC staff venison block that they keep to themselves.

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well went out to look for a stag
heard very few roars...and a tasty young hind said "take me home and warm me in fry pan"
SO I DID.....

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Re the shooting of hinds with good genetics, a great hind has little impact on shifting the genetics of a herd compared to a stag just because she is limited by the number of offspring she produces per year. If we shot all the poor stags and left only the very top ones so that they covered 40 -50 hinds each we would see a dramatic improvement in antler genetics. Instead we shoot the good ones and leave the crap arse ones to breed. If you wanted to breed olympic sprinters would you choose Usane Bolt or Danny Devito as the sire ?

The managed wild herds in Europe that produce spectacular heads dont shoot the best stags until they are going down hill and are too old to hold hinds - 12 yrs +. They shoot all the crap ones out

if you wanted to breed top athelete would you by pass Valery Adams and only use Stephen????
two top level competitors in two VERY different sports,arguably have same genetics

but I agree we shoot ourselves in the foot...pun intended.
that top hind SHOULD poke out a top stag fawn at some point..... hopefully he lives long enough to poke a few hinds and pass on genes.
either way,we need to be seen to do something... I do wonder what goes through minds of chopper shooter when they whack over something as special as those you showed.... no matter which way you look at that it is short sighted dumb move.

To be able to manage genetics as mentioned above, you need a lot of open territory or semi open forest where you can have a clear view of roughly how many animals are around, which ones need culling which one need keeping and reasonably good access.
Something that can reasonably be done on farm land or some private land for exemple but impossible to do in the kaimais of similar large national forests.
One solution would be to cut big large alleys in those forest to creat some large open zone so that those animals can be managed more efficiently. Something forest and bird will probably be against.

Originally Posted by Friwi

To be able to manage genetics as mentioned above, you need a lot of open territory or semi open forest where you can have a clear view of roughly how many animals are around, which ones need culling which one need keeping and reasonably good access.
Something that can reasonably be done on farm land or some private land for exemple but impossible to do in the kaimais of similar large national forests.
One solution would be to cut big large alleys in those forest to creat some large open zone so that those animals can be managed more efficiently. Something forest and bird will probably be against.

instead of dropping bucket loads of poison...imagine how great it would be to be dropping plane loads of superphosphate on ridgetops instead!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Friwi

To be able to manage genetics as mentioned above, you need a lot of open territory or semi open forest where you can have a clear view of roughly how many animals are around, which ones need culling which one need keeping and reasonably good access.
Something that can reasonably be done on farm land or some private land for exemple but impossible to do in the kaimais of similar large national forests.
One solution would be to cut big large alleys in those forest to creat some large open zone so that those animals can be managed more efficiently. Something forest and bird will probably be against.

Pellet counts should be able to tell you how many animals are in an area ?

One of the things we have to remember is age instead of antler points or antler length. i would rather have an old 10 pointer than a young 12. There is definatly an over population of deer in nz at the moment so i really have no problem someone shooting 2-3 hinds and only taking the backsteaks.

My Son and I plan on going out for a culling session on Saturday evening. We still plan to retrieve all the deer but give them to a friend or 2 depending how we get on.

If its not done the farmer will have no crop for his stock come winter, it will be a good chance for my Son to drop a couple and hopefully get him excited again.

Listened to a meat-eater podcast where they were talking about trophy whitetail they took trophy quality whitetail from Wisconsin i think real big solid boys and does aswell and took them to another state
where the feed quality wasn't there like where they were captured, what they found was the bucks went down hill the hinds gave birth to bucks that were nowhere near the size of said father. They were the
same quality no bigger / better then other local deer this wasn't dues to genetics at all but feed quality. They did the reverse and moved deer to an area know for big bucks and the bucks were far better then
where they came from and they also found that if mum has a good supply of quality feed when pregnant this set up the bucks for life, poor health does gave birth to forever stunted bucks the conclusion was
genetics made very little difference as they managed to rule this out - very interesting cant help but this some of this will apply to red deer aswell

Trophy quality can be limited by either genetics or nutrition. In NZ wild red deer, it is much more likely to be limited by nutrition than genetics, due to poor soil nutrients & competition. It isn't comparable to farmed deer, where when the nutrition limit is hit genetics becomes important.

Age of wild stags is also a limiting factor, very few get old enough.

Originally Posted by sore head stoat

Pellet counts should be able to tell you how many animals are in an area ?

That would depend on food avaiability I assume

Originally Posted by Pengy

That would depend on food avaiability I assume

If you dont have the food the deer wont be there and the pellets wont be there either ?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4495278

Last sentence under the paragraph titled Abstract.

Originally Posted by gimp

Trophy quality can be limited by either genetics or nutrition. In NZ wild red deer, it is much more likely to be limited by nutrition than genetics, due to poor soil nutrients & competition. It isn't comparable to farmed deer, where when the nutrition limit is hit genetics becomes important.

Age of wild stags is also a limiting factor, very few get old enough.

I found reading old trophy hunting books fascinating for the information on this topic. Looking at the production of trophies from various herds as the deer expanded their range into new country with unlimited feed. Some herds have just never produced trophies - the Thorndon Hall stock for example that were released to become the Nelson Herd. Other herds have consistently produced trophies of note

It would tend to be the case that for more or less every herd, other than the Nelson herd, that nutrition and age are the most significant limiting factors.

well,I look at the cracker 12 that JoshC posted photo of...and look at the young 11 I shot a few years back quite a few miles south of there...and the 10 I shot 34years ago in middle of north island and a fella could be mistaken for thinking they were all from the same parents.
this season SHOULD all things considered show up some very good sets of antlers ,around south canterbury at least...we have had one of best grass growing seasons for decades,the stags have had a couple of easier years during rut where not every 2nd deer was shot,and people are starting to let young stuff grow older.
genetica play a big part but it needs good feed for them to really shine.