Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

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tgreeno
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby tgreeno » Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:26 am

Boogieman1 wrote:
woodswalker wrote:Boogieman, the term cull buck is an abomination that was created by places like the large deer ranches in Texas where they removed deer that they did not believe were contributing to the gene pool of big racked bucks. That term has absolutely no place in hunting wild deer on public land or places where the landowner does not have the ability to decide which bucks live and which deer die. It is an unfortunate tern that has been born out of the TV so called deer hunting expert shows that bear no resemblance to the kind of hunting that the majority of sport deer hunters are involved in. It is a term I find abhorrent.



I believe it! I don't watch the tv shows, but do know afew gun hunters with garages littered with young basket racks who use the term every year. Suspect they are just trying justify there killing of young bucks and lack of self control. Culling sounds a lot better in their head.


Killing mature bucks that have less than ideal gene's is the idea. If these guys are killing "young" bucks, then they don't understand the concept. They are most likely shooting the buck's they really want to be keeping around.


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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby rfickes87 » Sun Jul 30, 2017 3:56 am

Darkknight54 wrote:
Darkknight54 wrote:
JoeRE wrote:Oh boy, I have thought of many questions while reading their work. Cool that you have them on!

1) First of all congratulate them on a great job, they have assembled more data than anyone ever has before on whitetail behavior.
2) As mentioned already, have they observed a correlation between bedding and leeward slopes and/or travel and leeward slopes.
3) Instead of just looking at moon phase and any correlation with deer movement (they didn't find any) have they ever thought about looking at moon clock position (i.e. 12 oclock = overhead, 6 oclock =underfoot, 9 oclock = moon rise, 3 oclock = moon set)
4) Regarding almost all of the variables they have looked at, they differentiate between bucks and does but usually don't go any further. Have they ever considered breaking out age classes of bucks and comparing behavior. I.E. 2 year olds, 3 year olds, 4 year olds etc.
5) Typically telemetry studies that I have read about only record data points several times a day, at most once an hour. Distances are calculated as a straight line between the points. How are these gaps accounted for in their work? Has there been any thought to increasing the number of events to greatly reduce the unknowns. For instance weather in an area can change in minutes. I know battery life on the GPS collars is an issue, but still I think most telemetry studies are missing a ton of information by spacing out their data readings too far apart.
6) Have they considered looking at deer movement in relation to wind switches. I.E. Wind switches from N to S and what do the deer do as a result?
7) Have they considered looking at deer movement in relation to temperature changes? Do deer change elevation of bedding based on temperature changes?
8) Is there any information about deer behavior directly around the time of year of leaf drop and how it changes - in deciduous forests anyway?

I will stop now :lol:


x2! Also aerial maps w the terrain maps - if possible...
I only had half of this typed out, but took me half the morning at work and you beat me!
One thing that could really come from this is variable wind condition bedding w the older bucks. Im gritting my teeth in excitement to see the different tolerance levels and his rational for doing what he does. Another thing is if these guys are foresters then identifying food or water sources would put alot into perspective. ALSO...Time of day! The J hook would be fun to learn more about from this along w regards to wind when leaving the bed. Im sorry if any of this is already in the study but its been awhile since iv dove into them. I really look forward to the outcome if they take any of this into consideration.


The issue I see here is that they want hunters from the area to participate and posting this kind of info makes things pretty obvious. Idk anything about the properties maybe they are draw hunt only w low % chances of a draw or open to the public completely? Its just like that guy said on a podcast about it: "They are telling us where the deer are, lets go get em!" If they did and hunters used the info, then seeing how pressure effects them would be great study results as well. Also, accounting for locations or showing the kill spot of collared deer during their time lapse would be cool!


I found the area on Google maps. Believe me, haha it gets tons of pressure! Its state land. 100% open to public. It amazes me that those bucks were living as long as they did. 4 1/2+ years old
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby sureshotscott » Sun Jul 30, 2017 5:18 pm

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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby KLEMZ » Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:15 am

These gps telemetry studies are awesome! Great work being done here. As a hunter, I understand the excitement of the rut, and it is great to see it in actual buck movements in a big timber setting. And also to see how the deer avoid the orange army. Amazing animals! The gps technology is powerful stuff.

As a hunter, I am looking for information to help improve my odds at killing a nice buck. The very best information to me was found while watching two of your buck videos...
Predictable Buck (8103)
Mojo Buck (8159)

The reason they were so useful is that October locations were recorded every three hours (in 2014) on these two bucks! Plus, the first half of October is not rut influenced, so you have two full weeks of normal non pressured buck movement, observed via gps! That is just as important as all the rut and hunting season telemetry. So finally, my question...

Could you increase the gps location frequency to say once every hour during October? It would reveal movement patterns that would be way more useful to a hunter seeking to gain advantage during probably the most predictable movements of the year.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby john1984 » Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:19 pm

I wanna know their opinion on why some bucks have dark chocolate racks and others have white racks???

Another question related, I think Dan asked one time was, Why do the overwhelming majority of pen raised bucks have white antlers? ???
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby elk yinzer » Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:40 pm

To the guys asking for more frequent GPS pings to track buck movements - the biologists have answered that on the blog - in short, it's outside the scope of the academic study. They up the frequency in rifle season because they want to see hunter-deer interaction.

Left this reply on another forum, but I'll copy it here since there is more discussion:

What a great opportunity, glad I saw this thread. I would love to sit down and have a few beers picking the brains of the biologists and techs. But since I will probably never get that opportunity, I may have to check this out even though I never really cared for podcasts.

I think I have read just about every blog post since it first came out. It’s on my rotation of websites I check almost daily. I am intimately familiar with a couple of the study areas, which makes it all the more cool, especially when they put up the videos of collared deer and I’m like “hey, I hunt that ridge”.

One question is: Why scope it out with just deer? Why didn’t they pick a study area within the elk range? Why study the forest health in two areas where the largest native ungulate has been extirpated? How might elk, if they lived in each study area, as they should and may in the relatively near future, affect the forest health? We know that elk require healthy forests and herbaceous openings—to that end arises a chicken vs. egg scenario. Do we need healthy forests before farther elk expansion, or is it possible that elk make the forests healthier?

Another thing I would like to hear them discuss is not so much a specific question, but more of an overarching discussion to learn more about the vegetation or “forest” aspect of the study. That’s one part of it I have never fully understood. I would like to hear them speak more to the vegetation plots and how that relates to the various options in forest management. It’s not really doing much to say that deer browse, and more deer equals more browsing damage. That just confirms common logic that any reasonable person knows.

How do they account for soil quality, which if you are familiar with the study areas, is highly variable, and extremely poor soil to begin with? Do they take into account slope aspect and shading? What about the various treatment options, both recent history and in the distant past (clearcutting, various select cut methods, fire, herbicides, etc.), and how they affect soil quality and the vegetation they are studying today—are they accounted for in the study? How do they account for the uneven distribution of deer populations? Anyone who has hunted big woods in general and specifically the study areas knows deer are not distributed uniformly, because the habitat is so variable.

What is the end game of the vegetation study basically? What is the path forward? Yes, PA’s forests have been effected by a constant list of human disturbances over the years. Deforestation. Fires. Agriculture. Poor timber management. Acidification. And finally an overabundance of deer. If this is going to shape DCNR/PGC deer and timber management protocol, we stakeholders need to know that all these factors are being taken into account, not just telling us that more deer equals more browsing pressure, so we have to kill more deer.

I would like to know if they have gleaned any other info from the GPS collars they care to share. Terrain features, roads, camps, certain forest types, do these impact deer populations and how they move about the landscape? Hiking/MTB trails are very popular in the Southern Study areas, and in a couple areas those have absolutely blown up in the past decade. It's become a bit concerning how many trails are popping up each year. It’s like a theme park out there are at a couple of the access points anymore. Can they shed any insight into how that increased human activity affects the deer?

I would also like to hear some of their thoughts and personal opinions on CWD and if any of their GPS collar research has been applied to that end.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby KLEMZ » Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:52 pm

elk yinzer wrote:To the guys asking for more frequent GPS pings to track buck movements - the biologists have answered that on the blog - in short, it's outside the scope of the academic study. They up the frequency in rifle season because they want to see hunter-deer interaction.


I see. Thanks for the information.


Another question....how accurate are the time stamps on each ping? Is 14 hour exactly 2pm? The reason I ask is that I am quite surprised to see that bucks 8103 and 8159 (which appear to be in the biggest timbered section of the studies?) routinely were back in the area they bedded for the day by 2AM!! Way earlier than I ever knew. Also, both of these bucks were up and to the first feeding area (or at least moving towards it) by 4PM on most days in early October. This would be important information if it's accurate!!

Question...How many of the studies had bucks with overlapping home ranges? (tall order I know). I would love to see info on bachelor group dynamics, bedding area competition, choice of bedding areas based on direction or strength of winds simultaneously from 2 neighboring bucks.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby elk yinzer » Tue Aug 01, 2017 12:23 am

KLEMZ wrote:
elk yinzer wrote:To the guys asking for more frequent GPS pings to track buck movements - the biologists have answered that on the blog - in short, it's outside the scope of the academic study. They up the frequency in rifle season because they want to see hunter-deer interaction.


I see. Thanks for the information.


Another question....how accurate are the time stamps on each ping? Is 14 hour exactly 2pm? The reason I ask is that I am quite surprised to see that bucks 8103 and 8159 (which appear to be in the biggest timbered section of the studies?) routinely were back in the area they bedded for the day by 2AM!! Way earlier than I ever knew. Also, both of these bucks were up and to the first feeding area (or at least moving towards it) by 4PM on most days in early October. This would be important information if it's accurate!!

Question...How many of the studies had bucks with overlapping home ranges? (tall order I know). I would love to see info on bachelor group dynamics, bedding area competition, choice of bedding areas based on direction or strength of winds simultaneously from 2 neighboring bucks.


The time stamps are indeed accurate. I too was surprised at some of the timing, especially how much daytime movement there actually is in the mid-October pre-rut phase when I never see any deer.

One thing to note, and the potential folly of trying to apply this elsewhere, is that both study areas are very unique deer habitat. The Southern study area in particular. It's mountainous, very rocky, very infertile soil, there are some ridges that hold decent deer numbers, but then there are entire ridges that are so rocky, open, and devoid of anything deer desire, I call these areas "deserts" because they are a waste of time. There are entire hillsides, thousands of acre patches, covered in impenetrable mountain laurel. Deer do not hurt for bedding cover here. And when there are acorns, they do not hurt for food either. As such, they tend to be rather nomadic and rotate between a bunch of different bedding areas within these "core" areas that have decent deer habitat.

Most years, when there are acorns, they can feed and bed in the same area, so there really is no feed/bedding pattern. I've seen this running cameras in the area and studying the videos of collared deer has confirmed that. They just kind of bed and feed at leisure and have these established home ranges but no discernible patterns within these ranges. That is, until the rut heats up. Then these floating home ranges start shifting, and there are areas that traditionally see more activity once the rut begins. Now that is a phenomenon I would like to hear from them about. My personal belief is that the bucks start to push the does around and they seek refuge. The bucks get these does herded up and then start scent checking these areas which is where I always see a lot of secondary scrapes pop up. Sure, these are bedding areas too outside of the breeding season, but it seems to me that disproportionate rutting activity takes place, so it's almost like does are also migrating to these rut areas. Now there are some collared deer on the study areas that interface with the fertile agricultural valleys - I've seen those deer have patterns much more established like you would expect--same route to feed and bedding each day. I've never pegged down a mature buck running this pattern, seems the doe groups do it more often.

There absolutely have been bucks with overlapping ranges, and they've noted on the blog a few times where collared deer have converged. The thing is, to try to come to conclusions on any of the other assumptions you mentioned is again outside the scope of the study. You have to remember these are scientists, and at the end of the day their job is to write papers on how deer populations are interfacing with the forest via browsing pressure and affecting regeneration. They can't study aspects of deer behavior that they can't include in a peer reviewed scientific paper.

We can take the videos and speculate about why bucks choose certain areas, and trust me, I have tried, but at the end of the day that kind of behavior is impossible to prove in a scientific manner, so you won't see any of these scientific studies do so. And I have developed my own formulas here for finding "deery" areas in this vast expanse of big woods, but those are borne through a lot of boot miles and studying the woods over the past 10 years I've been hunting it. Studying the movement of the collared deer, while neat, has only produced a few comparatively minor observations.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby csoult » Tue Aug 01, 2017 4:00 am

I want to thank everyone for posting their questions. A lot of you have the same questions as I do, and some of you have given me some questions that I would never have thought about asking! The deadline for this is 12 EST tomorrow.

I am really looking forward to this podcast and hope you guys enjoy it. We typically publish our podcasts on Sundays so stay tuned.

Thanks Again

Coty Soult
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby JoeRE » Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:01 am

elk yinzer wrote:To the guys asking for more frequent GPS pings to track buck movements - the biologists have answered that on the blog - in short, it's outside the scope of the academic study. They up the frequency in rifle season because they want to see hunter-deer interaction.


Yea that is what I suspected the answer would be. I understand the Objectives of the study are focused on habitat for the most part. But my thought is that the less frequent monitoring limits conclusions on a lot of the variables that they have discussed in their blog posts, specifically ones about wind, rain, temperature, storm fronts, and moon. Same with other telemetry studies I have read about.

Regardless, that's minor stuff compared to the project as a whole which is incredibly informative. I will take what I can get!
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby Tjterry » Sun Aug 06, 2017 7:27 am

When will this podcast be available?
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby csoult » Sun Aug 06, 2017 9:15 am

Sunday evening
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby Tjterry » Sun Aug 06, 2017 9:23 am

Looking forward to it, thanks.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby headgear » Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:23 pm

KLEMZ wrote:Could you increase the gps location frequency to say once every hour during October? It would reveal movement patterns that would be way more useful to a hunter seeking to gain advantage during probably the most predictable movements of the year


I would raise the stakes and track 15 minute intervals but also note all day time movement separate from other movement, really its the only time we can shoot the deer so that data would be cool.
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Re: Questions For The Deer Forest Study Biologists

Unread postby csoult » Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:17 pm

I published this episode last night. First of all, I want to say that Jeannine and Duane were very accommodating and even found a room on campus for us to record the podcast. The audio on this podcast is not the best that we've had, so my apologies for that. Setting up in a different setting kind of threw me off.

At any rate it's a great podcast and very informative so I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for all of the questions!

You can listen here:

Website:
http://theopenairproject.com/2017/08/07 ... est-study/

iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the ... 11731?mt=2

Stitcher:
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-open-air-project


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