Ever since the early days of game management in this state, deer hunters have been somewhat reluctant to listen to biologists concerning deer management
I worked for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in 1976 as the district biologist in the Florida Parish region. At that time, Dewey Wills was the assistant chief of the Game Division. He quickly became one of my mentors and was somewhat responsible for me being hired, but that’s another story.
Wills was what I often refer to as one of the first-generation game biologists. Hired in the 1950s, Wills was part of the biologists who helped establish deer populations around the state. He worked out of the Ferriday office and was involved with the management work on the Chicago Mills Game Management Area.
This area was overpopulated with deer, and Wills and others had proposed a managed hunt to harvest does. However, Sheriff Coleman had other ideas and made the statement that no one is coming into Tensas Parish and shooting a doe without his permission!
He went on to say, “Dewey Wills is really an ok guy, but the only thing he knows about deer is what he read in those books at college, and the people who wrote the books are wrong.”
Wills had a lot of other similar stories, but he always gave good advice. You need to find common ground with the hunters you work with and listen to what they say, then work together to resolve the problem.
Communicating with the public
In college, they did not have many courses about people management, but it quickly became clear to me that it was a big part of the job. I also experienced early on what Wills and other biologists had experienced, deer hunters don’t really want management advice.
The Department initiated a program called Acres for Wildlife; the program was designed to provide landowners and clubs with habitat and herd management recommendations and would provide free seed for planting food plots. An elderly gentleman in East Feliciana Parish, who was the president of a deer club, called me and asked me to come tell him about the program. I met with him and explained how it worked. When I had finished, he looked at me and plainly stated, “I don’t need any management advice. I just want the seed!”
A lot of hunting clubs and landowners operated in that fashion at that time, believing they knew how to manage and hunt deer and didn’t want biologists telling them how to do it. They had seen the days when deer numbers were low and seasons were for bucks only, then deer numbers began to increase in the early ’70s and there was no reason to shoot does because they are the ones producing the bucks.
The department initiated the DMAP program in the early ‘80s and that helped promote the idea of deer herd management, and today hunters are ok for the most part with total herd management, harvesting bucks and does.
Different information
There are other areas where deer hunters and biologists have different ideas regarding deer biology, hunting and management. I was reading an article about temperature and deer movement and the writer, a biologist, was saying that research shows that the temperature has no effect on deer movement and hunters don’t need to worry about cold fronts, just go hunting. But the biologist was looking at research done in Wisconsin during the month of November, when temperatures are less than 50 degrees.
The article gave me a good laugh because we had just experienced a couple weeks of above average temperatures here in East Feliciana Parish. With daily temperatures in the low 80s, I had seen deer movement and activity go to zero. In our Gulf Coast environment, where we can experience mild winters, cold fronts are important to hunters here in Louisiana.
Northern deer live in a different environment from their southern cousins. Winters are cold, and the rut is short and more distinct than Louisiana deer due to the winter conditions. Because of this, some biologists say there is no such thing as a second rut, it’s just the 6-month-old female fawns becoming sexually mature and breeding a little later. But here again, as the winter progresses in the northern states and habitat conditions begin to decline, deer go into survival mode and can’t afford to be burning energy on breeding.
In Louisiana, I have always observed a second rut in most deer areas. It is certainly true that the majority of does are bred during the first and primary breeding period (maybe 80 percent), but if the buck component is good on an area, the second period of breeding can provide some good activity and movement. On several occasions I have observed three to five bucks chasing a doe that had yet to breed.
Field time is important
Biologists need to understand that hunters and landowners are on the landscape much more often than they are, and they see and have an idea of what is going on with the deer herd. Trail cameras have greatly increased the knowledge of hunters and landowners regarding deer. Sometimes a biologist may spend too much time in the office and not out in the field.
When I was district supervisor of the Florida Parish region, I always encouraged the district biologists to get out in the field and spend time with the clubs and landowners. I told them it would make them more credible when they offered herd and habitat recommendations. Too much time spent just looking at the harvest data doesn’t tell the whole story.
CWD
There are some other things that hunters and biologists will sometimes argue about, such as deer movement during full moon events, the value of feeding deer, shooting low-end deer such as spikes, and using antler restrictions to produce older bucks. One thing that they both should agree on is the threat of chronic wasting disease (CWD) and its potential impact to a deer herd. CWD is real, it is in Louisiana, and hunters and landowners should be working hand in hand with biologists to manage the disease.
Some hunters may think that the problem with the disease in Louisiana does not seem too serious since the number of diseased deer found is somewhat low. This is not good thinking; the disease moves slowly and we are still in the early stages of it in this state. In 15 years, it could be a totally different situation if we don’t do what is necessary to get a handle on it. Hunters must keep shooting deer and they should get their deer tested, especially in the disease areas. This is a time to listen to the department biologists and do what they say.
Keep hunting, be safe and share your success with others!
