Coyotes and Southern Ohio Deer

[giles]

Damn horse was just playing opposum! Get the gun Margaret!!!

 

[Jackalope]

Damn horse was just playing opposum! Get the gun Margaret!!!

 

[Hedgelj]

I grilled Tonkovich on this exact issue back in 09-11 after they started their big herd reduction push in 08.. At the time he kept publicly stating that Ohio had 750k deer. I asked him directly in front of a lot of people on this site how he got that number. He could not give a valid scientific answer. It was purely made up. I pulled quotes from his 750k statement going back years, then presented him with deer-vehicle accident data showing a huge reduction in DVAs since they started reducing the herd. So if DVAs are down 30% how is the population still at 750k? His answer. People aren't reporting deer-vehicle accidents. I even showed him how the number of registered vehicles and licensed drivers had increased over that time. He couldn't give me one scientific method used to estimate the deer population.

His response was they base it on the harvest. If a county harvest goes up that means the population is up. If harvest goes down there are fewer deer. I told him that is an incredibly flawed way to estimate a live population. You can't estimate live deer by counting the dead ones without first having a solid grip on the number of live ones. ESPECIALLY when the DNR is actively passing rules to increase harvest through increased opportunity like a bonus gun season, an October muzzy season, and cheap 15-dollar tags. It doesn't matter if there are 20 deer or 5 deer in a Woodlot a hunter can still kill 3, he just had to hunt longer and harder, or a bonus weekend.

He eventually admitted that most hunters aren't smart enough to figure it out. Said it to my face in front of quite a few people here. He admitted that because of their reduction efforts lots of hunters were just going to quit hunting. Matter of fact he said he didn't believe they would accomplish their reduction goals because too many hunters would simply quit.

So as they pushed forward and that exact thing happened their revenue fell and they lost federal dollars to match. So what did they do, raised license and tag fees across the board to bump their coffers back up.

It's all a bunch of smoke and mirror BS. You as a hunter may pay the bill, but the only people that matter are large insurance companies and the Farm Bureau. Lower vehicle collisions and higher crop yields are what matters, you're just the stupid tool they use to accomplish it and pay the bills.

Amen!

 

[BuckeyeFooter]

His response was they base it on the harvest. If a county harvest goes up that means the population is up. If harvest goes down there are fewer deer. I told him that is an incredibly flawed way to estimate a live population. You can't estimate live deer by counting the dead ones without first having a solid grip on the number of live ones. ESPECIALLY when the DNR is actively passing rules to increase harvest through increased opportunity like a bonus gun season, an October muzzy season, and cheap 15-dollar tags. It doesn't matter if there are 20 deer or 5 deer in a Woodlot a hunter can still kill 3, he just had to hunt longer and harder, or a bonus weekend.

Serious deer hunters are hunting smarter, not harder and longer. Real time cellular trail cams may increase success rates by several fold to ten fold. They are game changers. I can fully pattern a local herd’s activity without leaving my home or office.
Herd numbers keep coming down, deer harvest stays about the same.
Fact is, the DNR is getting the results they want , they just don’t want to admit what the goal is.