“RPAs don`t produce a lot of trophy money,” Heffelfinger said. “They`re good at creating more 21/2 year olds and maybe 31/2 year olds. This may be good for moose hunters and East Virginia hunters, but it`s not what most hunters expect from mule deer. Literature cited Ballard, J. 2008. Make a point. Wyoming Wildlife LXXI(3):34-39. Charpentier, L.H. and R.B. Gill. 1987. Restrictions of the Wood Stitch: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Proc. Western Assoc. Fish & Wildl. Agencies 67:94-107. Strickland, B.K. and S. Demarais. 2007. Using Antler Restrictions to Manage Older Bucks: Navigating the Tangled Thicket. Mississippi State Univ.

Extn. Serv. Publ. 2427. 16 pages. Wisconsin has a lot of hunting pressure as it ranks 4th nationally for the number of deer licenses sold. Prior to 1990, males were heavily harvested, especially in agricultural forest areas in central and southern Wisconsin. Unrestricted hunting seasons and limited quotas without antlers meant that hunting was concentrated on deer with antlers. The majority of hunters wanted to succeed and most wanted game. So there was competition for money.

Concerns about the genetic effects of selective harvesting are widespread. Would the selection of males according to the number of points of wood they wore be enough to change the future evolution of the antlers? Current research clearly shows the opposite. Western states have the most experience with ARs specifically designed to make larger woods. These were applied to both mule deer and moose. California tried ARs as early as 1937. Most other Western states followed. But by the 1970s, it became clear that ARs were not achieving their goal. At best, they simply shifted most of the yearling crop to 2.5-year-old males.

Eight counties in the northern Lower Peninsula that do not have an APRM, for example, had one-year average male harvests of 36 to 49.5 percent from 2013 to 2016. These counties are Arenac, Cheboygan, Clare, Crawford, Gladwin, Ogemaw, Otsego and Roscommon. The same results would be achieved under the VAPR in districts that currently have an APRM. To be effective, the rules on antlers must protect 18-month-old males, but this is rarely easy with whitetails. Fertile soils and agricultural land often produce abundant yearlings of 6 and 8 points. In this case, an APR, which indicates three or four points on a wood, can focus hunting pressure on the best yearlings instead of protecting them. This can lead to an “improvement” in the annual “harvest” of males and remove those that would produce the largest shelves two or three years later. Experience has shown that under high hunting pressure, RPAs can protect up to 70% of yearlings and other rams with small antlers, while creaming larger yearlings and concentrating mortality even more on mature males.

The age structure can be improved by distributing mortality among all age groups. If you really want a “natural” age and sex structure, you need to open the season within 15 days of the wheezing peak and pull 40-80% of the current production, as this would simulate nature without hunting (paraphrased by the late Dr. Tony Bubenik, Ontario MNR). Timber restrictions may be voluntary or mandatory. On large club grounds or shooting ranges, club members or the owner may voluntarily establish rules requiring a male to exceed a certain wooden condition or Boone & Croquet score before he can be shot. Wisconsin has struggled with herd control since 1990. Catch restrictions for the woodless have been greatly increased and hunting opportunities extended. This shifted wood deer mortality and focused more on antlerless deer. The result is that there is now an older age structure than at any time for many decades.

We are just beginning to understand how prions that cause CWD might be spread by deer, so empirical results are one way forward, but we can draw several conclusions. One-year-old rams disperse more than older groups. Restrictions on antlers protect one-year-old males so there are more, which means more wildlife. “If” (and this is a big if) these young males can carry prions, then protecting younger males could actually increase the prevalence of CWD. I`m sorry to end on a somber note, but let yourself sink for a while while you sit at your deer stand this fall. ALTHOUGH THE STATED POLICY OF THE Quality Deer Management Association is to support the protection of young males on a voluntary basis, the chapters of this organization have succeeded in getting the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to promote and establish MAPR in the state. A set of guidelines was established for the introduction of the AHR, requiring a sponsoring organization to designate a Deer Management Unit (DMU) or region for the AHR, and then pay MNR to conduct an opinion survey of a small random sample of hunters in the designated area to determine public support. If the survey leads to support of at least 66%, the MAPR comes into force. Before RPA, about 80% of males (most of whom were yearlings) were harvested by hunters each year. This resulted in male survival rates of less than 20%. Protecting most one-year-old males would increase male survival and thus increase adult males in the population, the goal of RPAs.

To the extent that the ratio is adjusted from 2 C per male to near 1, as could be the case with AEs, the herd growth rate is slowed. This can be good or bad depending on the objective. Most hunters wanted rapid growth to achieve and maintain high harvests. However, a slowdown in growth would be beneficial for controlling herds where deer are abundant and hunter demand is low. Hunters who are 15 years of age or younger on September 15, 2022 are exempt from the wood stitching restriction during archery season and all parts of firearms season. These counties need males to harvest you, have at least four stitches of wood on one side of their rack. This rule applies to both the archery and firearms hunting season. It does not apply to hunters arriving on September 15. September 2022 during archery season and all parts of gun season are 15 years of age or younger. The last state on the top 10 list for Booners, Missouri, has a bit of MAPR, but that state backpedals from those regulations in response to the presence of CWD. Older males are more susceptible to contracting the disease, so MAPR has been eliminated from parts of Missouri where CWD-infected deer were found. Both worked.

It began as a three-year experimental program with adjustments to deer and roe seasons and mandatory restrictions on wood points. Initially, this led to a dramatic increase in the deer harvest and a decrease in the deer harvest. The proportion of one-year-old males harvested increased from 90 to 67 percent in three years and fell to 48 percent in 2012. In 2015, it was only 41%. Between 2008 and 2015, approximately 237,945 males were bagged by UP hunters, according to the DNR, compared to 376,459 in 1999-2007, a difference of $138,514. Since 2008, as many males could have been harvested by hunters as in the previous nine years, but due to more restrictive regulations, these more than 100,000 males starved to death in winter or were uprooted in their weakened state by wolves, coyotes and bobcats. But again, no system is perfect and time often reveals shortcomings. The researchers noticed that hunters were reluctant to “burn” their tags on the spines, especially after observing improvements in the quality of antlers and the availability of mature males.

The simple solution was to allow hunters two males, one of whom had to have unbranched antlers. Of course, the use of the emerald ash borer is temporary, as it depends on the excess of deer. The emerald ash borer has proven to be one of the most effective herd reduction tools available for public hunting. As soon as the herd size is reduced and population targets approach, the emerald ash borer is discontinued and its impact on the extension of the age structure of males is eliminated. It should be noted that a “pre-qualification determination”, where a deer shot the previous year without antlers gives a hunter the right to shoot a male the following year, reduces the proportion of surviving males, as does the strategy of winning a second male (EA2B) by shooting antlers without antlers after a male has already been captured. The PEA changed things quickly and radically. The national deer herd increased from 1.49 million deer in 2000 to 1.14 million in 2005, and the mortality rate of one-year-old males increased from 80% to 31%, with 92% of “survivors” reaching the following autumn. Although half of the male harvest was still made up of one-year-old males, the other half contained many more males with larger antlers in age groups 31/2 and 41/2 than biologists expected.