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- Thread starter Ohiosam
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I think if the ODNR would have budged on the 750K number over the last few years they would come across more credible.
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Lets do this.....
DOW Chief David Graham. September 18th 2009
"With a deer herd estimated at 750,000 animals, Graham would like to see Ohio's population drop to about 550,000 deer."
And tonk follows suit..
Mike Tonkovich December 2nd 2010
The statewide deer population was estimated to be 750,000 in early October.
Mike Tonkovich November 10, 2011
"The deer population at the beginning of archery season stood at about 750,000, roughly the same as it was at the start of last year's bowhunting season."
Mike Tonkovich Sept 29, 2011
"As it stands, the deer herd is estimated, minimally, at 750,000, a number that, were it any larger, would probably require new measures. Under the current goals, the herd would be closer to 500,000 instead of 750,000."
Sources
http://www.toledoblade.com/StevePollick/2011/11/27/Deer-gun-take-put-at-110-000.html
[FONT="]http://outdoornews.com/ohio/news/article_cccf2482-09bc-11e1-a927-001cc4c002e0.html
[/FONT] http://outdoornews.com/ohio/news/article_7df6b3f2-ea9f-11e0-bc2a-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=print
http://outdoornews.com/ohio/news/article_64e34e88-fe1f-11df-8f77-001cc4c03286.html
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Oh I'm Soooooooo going to have fun this spring.... :smiley_clap: I still need domain name Ideas guys...
A favorite movie quote of mine comes to mind...
""You tell 'em I'M coming... and Hell's coming with me, you hear?! Hell's coming with me!""
Oh I'm Soooooooo going to have fun this spring.... :smiley_clap: I still need domain name Ideas guys...
A favorite movie quote of mine comes to mind...
""You tell 'em I'M coming... and Hell's coming with me, you hear?! Hell's coming with me!""
Mine TOO! I was driving down the road yesterday thinking we needed to have a YouTube clip of that on the website!!! There's a reason we're in business together!!! :smiley_clap: In addition to that, you can tell Tonk that "I'm his Huckleberry..." lmao
Do we want to play on the lack of deer for a name or more along the lines of a united front? Something like www.DeerlessOhio.com or more like www.UnitedOhioHunters.com? Both lame suggestions, but trying to get an idea of where we are headed with it...
Huckleberry Finn
Senior Member
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I'm going to email Tonk in tomorrow. I have a few thoughts to pass along and questions to ask. Things about fawn recruitment, herd estimation, etc. Anyone have any questions I should ask?
Ask why he never bothers to respond to us here? And if he's ready for war... :smiley_clap:
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I will tell him about this forum. If he isn't already aware of it, so he can at least see what some views are.
I was pretty ticked off after reading his latest quote, so I called Mike Rex. As you know they are good friends, and I wanted his thoughts on those quotes. Anyway, Mike R has me convinced to just ask Tonk what his thoughts are on the issues as I see them. Same scenerio as when Tonk called me a couple of years ago...only now, I don't seem to be the only one with an issue. From the previous conversation I feel that Tonk is a bright guy, didn't get the impression he was out to wipe out the deer herd etc. I still don't want to believe he is, but I do believe he is basing his estimates on bad data, or there is a serious flaw in the formula....there is a problem somewhere! Just thought I'd check with you folks to see if you all had some thoughts you want shared.
I was pretty ticked off after reading his latest quote, so I called Mike Rex. As you know they are good friends, and I wanted his thoughts on those quotes. Anyway, Mike R has me convinced to just ask Tonk what his thoughts are on the issues as I see them. Same scenerio as when Tonk called me a couple of years ago...only now, I don't seem to be the only one with an issue. From the previous conversation I feel that Tonk is a bright guy, didn't get the impression he was out to wipe out the deer herd etc. I still don't want to believe he is, but I do believe he is basing his estimates on bad data, or there is a serious flaw in the formula....there is a problem somewhere! Just thought I'd check with you folks to see if you all had some thoughts you want shared.
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He is... I can't tell you the amount of times I see guests with the "Ohio DNR" Ip addresses browsing the forum reading these very threads. Google his name... Half of it is interviews he's done with newspapers.. The other half is TOO and OS bashing him about deer numbers.
I don't want to talk with the man. The time for reasoning and talking with hunters would have been before he set about this agenda not after he's almost completed it... The damage is primarily done.
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Posted back on page 14.... I'm sure the ODOW uses most, if not all, of these same methods for estimating herd population.
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It may or may not be at that number....
The fact remains that you have to kill a lot of deer in order to make the population go down instead of up. Look how many years it kept going up and up, no matter how liberal the tags got... Sooner or later it's got to level off and go the other way... Maybe that's happening now, maybe it's not. We'll see what taTONKa says....
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You don't habe to kill a shitload of deer to reduce a population.. Ryans numbers showed what a slight overharbest can do to a population in a very short period of Tims. And the lower the population the less you have to kill to make it go down.. Its simple compounding. Much as we habe seen it drop and drop and drop for the past 3-4 years..
There is no "may or may not be". I just posted four sources when he said with his own mouth the past few years that it was estimated at 750,000... According to him we havent reduced a single deer. Despite a bonus gun season, and 100% increase in tag availability. He still thinks more needs to be done..
So its either one of two things...
The dude is fuggin clueless (which I highly doubt)
Or he's lying through his teeth.
Wait and see what he says.. My bet is its more of the latter.
As Brock stated earlier, Mike Tonkovich is a good friend of mine. We're "rural" neighbors here in Athens Co. Our wives are friends, I turkey hunt on his property, he brings his kids over to fish in my pond etc... Mike and I have debated DOW policy for over 15 years and he will be the first to tell you that I don't agree with every decision the state makes. However, knowing Mike as well as I do, I sleep good at night knowing that any recommendation he makes is based off of the best available data and his honest opinion of what he thinks is best for the resource and ALL Ohioans... I can say without question that Mike Tonkovich is not a liar!
Mike Tonkovich does not read this forum. I tried to get him to join the *** last fall as it is not open to all and he liked the idea but was advised by a superior not to participate. If ODNR IP's are showing up on this board, it's somebody else within the division...probably a wildlife investigator or someone in that capacity.
We were talking this afternoon and I mentioned that there seems to be a growing dissension among the ranks about the direction the statewide deer population is headed. He was well aware. I said some folks are really hung up on population estimates. He and I first "went around" about this in the mid 90's, the year after the total harvest dropped over 35%, so I pretty much already knew the answer to the question but I asked him to send me an email outlining the concept...I was driving.
Mike,
Per our conversation this afternoon - estimating the size of a deer
population is incredibly difficult for one very important reason - it is based on the REPORTED HARVEST. Period. Without accurate harvest data, we have very little to go on. That is a very difficult position to be in, as there is no way of knowing how good the harvest data, and ultimately the population estimate, actually is. Why? Harvest is ultimately a function of two things - the actual number of deer and 2) hunter effort. The first is fixed. The deer are there or they're not. Of course, that doesn't mean they are always equally as available. Factors such as hunter access, abundant mast crop, bad weather and standing corn can reduce the number of deer available for harvest in various parts of the state. This changes annually and no one has of yet, figured out how to quantify that variability. Things are even more difficult when it comes to the hunter and his/her effort. Buying a license 2 years in a row doesn't necessarily translate to equal amount of effort. I’m not suggesting that hunters have suddenly become lazy, however, for the reasons I mentioned like bad weather, we have no way of quantifying hunter effort - an integral piece of the deer management equation.
Consider last year. We had a record mast crop. Long term data unequivocally shows an inverse relationship between hunter success and mast abundance in the forested areas of the state which harbor the majority of our deer. The harvest data last year fell out just as you might expect. The archery harvest was down 8% before gun season. The opening day gun harvest was up 12%.My interpretation: gun hunters picked up the deer bow hunters couldn't because of the difficulty associated with patterning deer. The weather turned bad on Tuesday and the harvest never recovered. License and permit sales were off and hunter contacts by wildlife officers were off 15%. I interpreted this as an indication of reduced effort. At the end of the year, I looked at the complete picture - and concluded that in spite of a 9% drop in the harvest, the population was probably as strong at the start of the 2010 season as it was the previous year and that other factors (mast, effort, weather) probably contributed more to the harvest decline than the actual size of the deer population. This year's harvest results suggest that I was wrong, that in fact, there may have been fewer deer at the start of the season than originally predicted. I have been wrong before and chances are good I will be wrong again. I will openly admit it. This is a challenging process to say the least.
As you and I have discussed many times, Deer management is as much an art as it is a science. That is why I have preached until I'm blue in the face that hunters can help improve the process by returning their hunter effort surveys and keeping us posted about their effort each year. We need that information more than ever before and it would go a long way towards allowing us to do a better job interpreting this year's data and forecasting next year's harvest.
Again, I have no problem being wrong about the size of the statewide deer population. In fact, I would like to be wrong as that would mean that we are making progress towards reducing the population in most parts of the state, a job we have been working hard at for some time and progress is certainly welcome.
Take care Mike!
Michael J. Tonkovich, Ph.D.
Deer Project Leader
ODNR, Division of Wildlife
360 E. State St.
Athens, OH 45701
Mike Tonkovich does not read this forum. I tried to get him to join the *** last fall as it is not open to all and he liked the idea but was advised by a superior not to participate. If ODNR IP's are showing up on this board, it's somebody else within the division...probably a wildlife investigator or someone in that capacity.
We were talking this afternoon and I mentioned that there seems to be a growing dissension among the ranks about the direction the statewide deer population is headed. He was well aware. I said some folks are really hung up on population estimates. He and I first "went around" about this in the mid 90's, the year after the total harvest dropped over 35%, so I pretty much already knew the answer to the question but I asked him to send me an email outlining the concept...I was driving.
Mike,
Per our conversation this afternoon - estimating the size of a deer
population is incredibly difficult for one very important reason - it is based on the REPORTED HARVEST. Period. Without accurate harvest data, we have very little to go on. That is a very difficult position to be in, as there is no way of knowing how good the harvest data, and ultimately the population estimate, actually is. Why? Harvest is ultimately a function of two things - the actual number of deer and 2) hunter effort. The first is fixed. The deer are there or they're not. Of course, that doesn't mean they are always equally as available. Factors such as hunter access, abundant mast crop, bad weather and standing corn can reduce the number of deer available for harvest in various parts of the state. This changes annually and no one has of yet, figured out how to quantify that variability. Things are even more difficult when it comes to the hunter and his/her effort. Buying a license 2 years in a row doesn't necessarily translate to equal amount of effort. I’m not suggesting that hunters have suddenly become lazy, however, for the reasons I mentioned like bad weather, we have no way of quantifying hunter effort - an integral piece of the deer management equation.
Consider last year. We had a record mast crop. Long term data unequivocally shows an inverse relationship between hunter success and mast abundance in the forested areas of the state which harbor the majority of our deer. The harvest data last year fell out just as you might expect. The archery harvest was down 8% before gun season. The opening day gun harvest was up 12%.My interpretation: gun hunters picked up the deer bow hunters couldn't because of the difficulty associated with patterning deer. The weather turned bad on Tuesday and the harvest never recovered. License and permit sales were off and hunter contacts by wildlife officers were off 15%. I interpreted this as an indication of reduced effort. At the end of the year, I looked at the complete picture - and concluded that in spite of a 9% drop in the harvest, the population was probably as strong at the start of the 2010 season as it was the previous year and that other factors (mast, effort, weather) probably contributed more to the harvest decline than the actual size of the deer population. This year's harvest results suggest that I was wrong, that in fact, there may have been fewer deer at the start of the season than originally predicted. I have been wrong before and chances are good I will be wrong again. I will openly admit it. This is a challenging process to say the least.
As you and I have discussed many times, Deer management is as much an art as it is a science. That is why I have preached until I'm blue in the face that hunters can help improve the process by returning their hunter effort surveys and keeping us posted about their effort each year. We need that information more than ever before and it would go a long way towards allowing us to do a better job interpreting this year's data and forecasting next year's harvest.
Again, I have no problem being wrong about the size of the statewide deer population. In fact, I would like to be wrong as that would mean that we are making progress towards reducing the population in most parts of the state, a job we have been working hard at for some time and progress is certainly welcome.
Take care Mike!
Michael J. Tonkovich, Ph.D.
Deer Project Leader
ODNR, Division of Wildlife
360 E. State St.
Athens, OH 45701
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Schu72
Well-Known Member
Seem like a very honest answer, unfortunaltely this doestn' seem to be what we hear in the press. Also, it seems with today's technology and the changes in hunter practices and access it might be time to look at something other than harvest data. That seems overly simplistic and more like a guess than a true effort to determine the size of the herd.
Okay. As I read this, my interpretation is Mike T is admitting his herd estimates were off. He is admitting harvest totals are down because the population is not what it once was. He is admitting he is happy about it because they are achieving their goals. Did I miss anything? Am I interpreting this wrong?
With today's technology and internet access, doesn't it seem like there would be a better way to gather hunter surveys and opinions than randomly sent out surveys in the mail? Just curious. I mean, I didn't get one. I would like to have some input.
With today's technology and internet access, doesn't it seem like there would be a better way to gather hunter surveys and opinions than randomly sent out surveys in the mail? Just curious. I mean, I didn't get one. I would like to have some input.
