Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

When Doe Fawns Breed, It’s a Good Sign

When Doe Fawns Breed, It’s a Good Sign

Some doe fawns breed and conceive in their first fall, at around six to eight months of age. The percentage that do this is determined by nutrition – they attain sexual maturity if they reach a specific weight threshold. In general, southern fawns reach it at approximately 70 pounds and northern fawns at approximately 80 pounds live weight. Fawns that manage to hit this threshold in their first fall tend to do so late, in December or January, and they are one reason for an apparent “second” rut in many areas.

Since the percentage of doe fawns that breed is based on weight, not necessarily age, it is a good indicator of herd health, and you can monitor this index by checking the lactation status of any yearling does that are harvested. If you kill a doe this fall that is 1½ years old by the jawbone and has milk in its udder, it was bred as a fawn.

Deer herds with access to abundant high-quality forage and light to moderate winters can have breeding in more than 50 percent of their doe fawns. Conversely, deer herds exposed to poor habitat or severe winters often have less than 5 percent of their doe fawns reach the threshold weight and breed.

Doe fawn breeding rates vary widely across states. A 2010 QDMA survey showed less than 10 percent of doe fawns bred in Delaware, Idaho and South Carolina, while 70 percent of them bred in Iowa. This is testament to the mineral-rich soils and volume of agriculture in Iowa that provides abundant high-quality forage and allows fawns to grow rapidly. Amazingly, an estimated 10 percent of the doe fawns that bred in Iowa gave birth to twins. Even more amazing is that 21 percent of the doe fawns that bred in the farmland region of Ohio had twins!

Nationwide, an estimated 26 percent of doe fawns bred in 1998, and that average dropped slightly to 23 percent in 2008. However, since this index is so closely tied to a region’s habitat quality, it is difficult to lump the breeding rates across a region or even a state together. For example, in Pennsylvania an average of 25 percent of the doe fawns bred in 2008, but that percentage varied from 0 to 38 percent across the state’s wildlife management units (WMUs). Similar ranges occurred in Alabama (0 to 33 percent), New Hampshire (0 to 25 percent), South Dakota (0 to 58 percent), and Virginia (3 to 49 percent). These rates likely varied even more across specific properties within any WMU. This is one reason why collecting data from your location and using that to make site-specific harvest recommendations can benefit your Quality Deer Management program. Also, you can compare your data to WMU or state averages and assess how your QDM program measures up, and whether you have realistic expectations for what you can accomplish.

QDMA is the only conservation organization that monitors whitetail populations and herd health. Help us do more to track, encourage and protect whitetails: please become a QDMA member today. Your support is needed and appreciated!

Wildlife

Suspect deer confirmed positive for chronic wasting disease

GW:  This ain’t good!

Deer was harvested in Dewitt Township; Eaton County hunters urged to voluntarily check deer and stop baiting and feeding of deer

As of Thursday, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources reports a total of 3,695 deer in Michigan this year have been tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD). Four deer have been confirmed positive for the disease, with the fourth positive just recently found.

During the firearm deer season, a hunter from Dewitt Township (Clinton County) in the Core CWD Area brought a 1 1/2-year-old buck into the DNR’s Rose Lake deer check station. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the deer as CWD positive.

Because the deer was harvested within 10 miles of the Eaton County border, the DNR strongly encourages all hunters within Eaton County to voluntarily stop baiting and feeding, continue hunting and, most importantly, bring harvested deer into a DNR check station.

“Deer hunters in DMU 333 have been a great help by bringing in their deer to be tested. We couldn’t be more thankful or impressed with their dedication to the resource,” said Chad Stewart, DNR deer specialist. “We continue to need their help and are also asking Eaton County hunters to join our efforts. In addition, we have begun conversations with DeWitt Township, and they, too, are becoming great partners in this fight against CWD.”

There will be no mandatory regulation changes from now through the end of the deer season, as the DNR conducts CWD surveillance and decides what additional steps might be needed for the 2016 season.

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose. It is caused by the transmission of infectious, self-multiplying proteins (prions) contained in saliva and other body fluids of infected animals. Susceptible animals can acquire CWD by direct exposure to these fluids, or from environments contaminated with these fluids or the carcass of a diseased animal.

Some chronically CWD-infected animals will display abnormal behaviors, progressive weight loss and physical debilitation; however, deer can be infected without showing internal or external symptoms for many years. There is no cure; once a deer is infected with CWD, it will die.

To date, there is no evidence that chronic wasting disease presents any risk to non-cervids, including humans, either through contact with an infected animal or from handling venison. However, as a precaution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization recommend that infected animals not be consumed as food by either humans or domestic animals.

The DNR provides weekly CWD updates at mi.gov/cwd. Announcements of additional CWD-positive deer also will be posted online.

Wildlife

You Can’t Follow Your Money

By Glen Wunderlich

It may be a difficult concept for some individuals to understand, but hunters’ dollars have been the driving force behind wildlife conservation long before animals had lawyers. Through license fees, plus hidden excise taxes on firearms and hunting and fishing gear, ample funds have been generated for wildlife management. This year alone, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has distributed $1.1 billion in revenues generated by the hunting and angling industry to state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies throughout the nation. The funds support critical fish and wildlife conservation and recreation projects that benefit all Americans.

Enter into the equation the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), which was passed by Congress in 1980. Since then, it has been a cost-recovery resource for veterans, Social Security beneficiaries, and small businesses who find themselves in litigation against the federal government.  Any payouts – and, there have been many in the millions of dollars – are taken from funds meant for wildlife conservation generated by outdoors people. As a result, wildlife habitat improvements and management continue to suffer.

When the law was first enacted, federal agencies were required to report annually on EAJA applications and the amount of attorney fees each agency awarded to groups and individuals. However, that reporting requirement ended in 1995 due to the Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act. As a result, since 1998 there has been no uniform method of reviewing EAJA and there is no public accountability or transparency in the program.

Over the past 15 years, several thousand cases have been filed by animal-rights groups against the federal government. The result is that millions, if not billions, have been paid out, which in effect, makes us all contributors to radical causes we may not support.

Their strategy is simple: Overwhelm the system and bilk the public in the name of environmentalism or animal protection. As an example, in one petition the Center for Biological Diversity requested that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) review 404 species in the Southeast alone for Endangered Species Act (ESA) consideration. Additionally, WildEarth Guardians filed two petitions listing 1,156 species for protection. Victories are often obtained because of technicalities such as missed deadlines and hardly ever for substantive matters.

And, remember, those of us, who have paid our hard-earned dollars into the system, have had no legal right to know how much of our money has been squandered. However, there remains hope.

This past week, the U.S. House approved unanimously by voice vote the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act (H.R. 3279), a bipartisan bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Doug Collins (R-GA) and cosponsored by Reps. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Steve Cohen (D-TN).  The bill reinstates requirements that federal agencies track and report the attorney fees they award under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

H.R. 3279 requires the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) to track and report payments made by the federal government under EAJA in order to increase transparency and inform Congress of the impact and effectiveness of the law. The bill requires ACUS to submit an annual report to Congress and establish an online searchable database available to the public.  This will allow the public to access information on the amount of attorneys’ fees being paid under EAJA, to whom the taxpayers’ money is being paid, and from which agencies.

In the past, similar efforts to create this semblance of transparency promised by the current administration have stalled, because past U.S. Senate leader, Harry Reid (D-Nevada) blocked its advance by never allowing it to be brought forth for consideration. We can draw our own conclusions as to his rationale, but the results fly in the face of honesty, not to mention the best interests of our wildlife resources.

With Mr. Reid’s departure from the top of the chain of command, the American people now have a chance to follow the money. And, it’s about time!

Animal Rights, Hunting, Wildlife ,

Scientists Agree: Great Lakes Wolves No Longer Endangered

With nearly 4,000 wolves roaming the Great Lakes region, scientists and wildlife management professionals with more than 1,000 years of cumulative research on wolves overwhelmingly agree with the Sportsmen’s Alliance: wolves in the Great Lakes region are not endangered and should be removed from the protections of the Endangered Species Act with management returned to state biologists.

In a letter to Sally Jewell, Secretary of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 26 scientists, many of whom originally lobbied for the wolf’s endangered status, attest that wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin should be considered recovered.

Consider these telling quotes from the letter:

  • “For at least a decade, wolf populations have recovered in these states to the point where continued listing under the ESA is no longer necessary or beneficial to future wolf conservation.”
  • “[Removing listed species] has become nearly impossible to achieve for wide-ranging or high profile species like gray wolves. Four efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and its cooperators to delist or down-list gray wolves in the western Great Lakes states have been foiled or reversed by litigation typically based on legal technicalities rather than biology.”
  • “There are few, if any, areas in these or surrounding states where wolves could live on natural prey without exceeding socially tolerable levels of depredation on livestock and pets. We believe that failure to delist in the face of this kind of cooperative effort and biological success is detrimental to ecologically sound management and to continued progress in wolf recovery and management efforts in these states and elsewhere.”
  • “There is no scientific evidence that wolf harvest systems established in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have or would reduce wolves’ ecological benefits in the areas where wolves have recovered.”
  • “We believe that failure to delist wolves in these states is counterproductive to wolf conservation there and elsewhere where suitable habitat may exist. The integrity and effectiveness of the ESA is undercut if delisting does not happen once science-based recovery has been achieved … It is important to the overall ESA goal of maintaining biodiversity to focus available funds on species that are truly threatened or endangered.”

The letter entirely upholds what the Sportsmen’s Alliance has said all along, and what we’re fighting for in court.

The last point makes a very strong case itself as to why wolves should be removed from the protections of the Endangered Species Act, one which any rational animal lover should back: there is only so much cash and other resources to go around, and to continue to devote those assets to a recovered species such as the gray wolf only threatens the future of other species truly in peril.

Unfortunately, Wayne Pacelle, the high priest of the Humane Society of the United States, and other like-minded individuals leading fringe, radical groups bent on the manipulation of the Endangered Species Act and undermining scientific wildlife management are anything but rational.

Wildlife

DNR check station staff hunting valuable deer data

Most Michigan deer hunters have been in the woods as much as possible during this firearm deer hunting season.

However, one group of deer hunters — members of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Division — have given up some of their days afield to check other hunters’ deer at check stations around the state.

Two DNR check station workers inspect a deerCollecting valuable data about the state’s deer population is something the DNR has been doing for decades.

The DNR is aided in its efforts by students and other volunteers and through partnerships with meat processors, taverns, recreation vehicle dealers and other businesses that provide some of the most popular check station venues.

“We get a ton of information from our hunters,” said Chad Stewart, the DNR’s deer specialist, who is located at the Rose Lake Research Center. “It’s the one time of year when we can really get our hands on so many deer.”

The DNR collects data on the age and sex structure of the harvest, location data from where the deer are being taken and a glimpse of the herd’s overall health.

“We get a lot of data at the township-range-section level,” Stewart said. “Any one data point doesn’t have much value. But, when you get that same data over time, it has a far greater impact. We’re able to tell where these deer came from and anything that changes over time regarding any of the factors we’re looking at.” Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

Wildlife officials ask for hunters’ help in eliminating chronic wasting disease in Michigan

The 2015 Michigan deer season is the first being conducted following a finding of chronic wasting disease in a free-ranging deer in Michigan. The disease was first detected in an Ingham County white-tailed deer this past spring.

Wildlife officials are optimistic, however, that CWD can be eliminated in Michigan and are asking for hunters’ assistance.

So far, public response has been “overwhelmingly positive,” said Chad Stewart, the Department of Natural Resources deer and elk specialist.

“Most people right now are on board with what we are doing,” he said. “They seem to understand the regulatory changes we’ve made. Not everyone likes them, but they understand them.”

In April, Meridian Township police dispatched a 6-year-old female deer that was exhibiting signs of DSK524 52.jpgneurological disease. An initial screening at the Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Disease Laboratory identified the deer as a CWD suspect. Soon, the National Veterinary Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the DNR’s suspicion: Michigan became the latest state to have found CWD in its free-ranging deer herd. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

Farm Bill Funds Available for Habitat

Upcoming Workshops Planned Around Southern Michigan

(Lansing) – Over the next couple months, Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC), Pheasants Forever, Quality Deer Management Association, local Conservation Districts, USDA Farm Services Agency, the DNR, and many other partners are coming together to promote pheasant cooperatives and general Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)  sign-up around Southern Michigan. January 2016 marks the 5th year of the Michigan Pheasant Restoration Initiative (MPRI), and along with sharing the successes of the MPRI, general CRP is opening for enrollment. These programs provide financial assistance to put quality wildlife habitat on the ground.

“The goal of these events is to provide landowners with valuable information and tools that equip them to create and enhance wildlife habitat on their properties,” said Wildlife Cooperative Coordinator with MUCC, Anna Mitterling. “Landowners will walk away with tips for increasing their odds to receive financial assistance, and will have personal access to experts who work with various habitat programs.” Read more

Wildlife

Dead mule deer dumped in Eaton County; DNR officials remind hunters of importation laws, CWD implications

Last week, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources responded to calls of a male mule deer lying on the side of the road in a rural area of Eaton County. The antlers had been removed and the animal was field-dressed, though DNR staff determined, after close X-ray examination, the animal was killed by a vehicle. There were no bullet holes or lead fragments, but there were numerous broken ribs and other trauma indicative of a deer/vehicle collision. Since there are no registered mule deer in Michigan’s privately owned cervid facilities, it is believed that this carcass was brought into Michigan from somewhere out west. Read more

Poachers, Wildlife

S.556, The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Bill Advances

Yesterday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to advance the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 (S.556) The legislation was reported out of the committee with overwhelming bipartisan support. Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) cast the sole recorded vote opposing the measure. The vote represents an important step toward enactment of this important legislation which will become eligible for consideration by the entire Senate subsequent to additional provisions of the Act being reported out of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Thank you to all of the NSSF members and hunters and shooters who took the time to contact your Senators to urge advancement of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act. Our industry’s voice was heard and we made a difference.

Wildlife

Upper Peninsula firearm deer season opens with improvement over last year

Young hunter on his first deer hunt, Menominee County

Michigan Department of Natural Resources staff said Sunday’s opening day of the firearm deer hunting season was improved in some parts of the Upper Peninsula over last year, based on reports from deer check stations.

Young hunter on his first deer hunt, Menominee CountyAcross the region, temperatures reached the low 50s, with sunny skies, though lingering snow that had fallen earlier in the week remained on the ground in some places.

Last year, much of the northwestern part of the U.P. was buried under 3 to 4 feet of snow by opening day, in the wake of a strong winter storm that began Nov. 10 and continued for three days, followed by lake-effect snow showers.

At the Marquette DNR check station, one deer was checked on opening day last November. This year, the Marquette station checked six deer, closer to the 10-year average of 10 deer brought in on opening day. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife
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