Deer Density

Discuss deer hunting tactics, Deer behavior. Post your Hunting Stories, Pictures, and Questions/Answers.
  • Advertisement

HB Store


User avatar
<DK>
500 Club
Posts: 4484
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 10:02 am
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby <DK> » Sat Dec 16, 2017 4:47 am

Lu Rome wrote:
Darkknight54 wrote:Does this seem reliable to you guys? Found it on the google machine search

http://maps.adventuremapping.com/whitet ... _map_1.asp

That's an interesting map, Dark. It looks like it's built off of state published harvest data and it looks like there are several different years, not all of it's current.

I don't have time now to dive into how a lot of the different surveys are done, but overall, the biggest thing isn't the calculated number, but the overall trend from year to year which is important. I'll try to dive into some of the methods later tonight.


Good deal! Comparing it to other maps, I noticed the county colors seem to be correct (as far as good deer counties) but the numbers were off. Thanks guys. Definitely a cool map


User avatar
<DK>
500 Club
Posts: 4484
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 10:02 am
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby <DK> » Sat Dec 16, 2017 4:49 am

headgear wrote:That is deer "harvest" density, not deer population density, so different things. Even then I'm not sure how accurate that is.


I tried to quote ya on my last post w LuRome - Thanks man!
User avatar
stash59
Moderator
Posts: 10077
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 8:22 am
Location: S Central Wi.
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby stash59 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 4:56 am

headgear wrote:That is deer "harvest" density, not deer population density, so different things. Even then I'm not sure how accurate that is.


Should be pretty accurate. Even though Wi. changed the need to tag deer. We still need to register them electronically. Which requires the animals sex and deer unit taken in. The deer units here now go by county. I'm sure a few are missed because people cheat the new system, but overall most hunters are being honest.

I see they do include croplands here.
Happiness is a large gutpile!!!!!!!
User avatar
Bigburner
Posts: 2097
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 6:41 am
Location: Delaware?
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby Bigburner » Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:16 am

My state uses aerial surveys in the form of IR flights. the best way to determine private acreage is just a trail cam survey. But harvest numbers also equate into public as well. the last flight my state did was in 2009 so as of now data goes out the window after about a year a two especially after a hit or two of EHD. other than the actual flight data outside of that all the other methods rely on a statistical formula that can be basterdized to suit any need at the time. But the argument that comes up is carry capacity versus deer density especially when you have a bunch of pissed of farmers that have 5 deer coming off the public into their bean field. That discussion is for another day though :roll:
Montani Semper Liberi
Instagram @formationoutdoors
User avatar
Dewey
Moderator
Posts: 36727
Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:57 pm
Location: Wisconsin
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby Dewey » Sat Dec 16, 2017 6:41 am

This is the latest deer density map for WI. Not sure how accurate it is but Iron County looks to be pretty tough. Lots of wolves up there.

Waupaca is really up there. :o

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/documents/ ... rtotal.pdf
Primetime41
Posts: 451
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:15 pm
Location: SE WI
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby Primetime41 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:08 am

Dewey wrote:This is the latest deer density map for WI. Not sure how accurate it is but Iron County looks to be pretty tough. Lots of wolves up there.

Waupaca is really up there. :o

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/documents/ ... rtotal.pdf


Thanks for posting. Racine and Kenosha always throw me for a loop. I lived in Racine County the last 5 years, surrounded by what I would consider to be some pretty good deer habitat, and it was always a "big event" when we'd spot deer. Don't understand why the population is so low.
User avatar
Lu Rome
Posts: 164
Joined: Sun Aug 07, 2016 4:30 pm
Location: Nebraska
Status: Offline

Re: Deer Density

Unread postby Lu Rome » Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:40 pm

Historically, it was popular to use fecal counts based either up on the number of pellets or pellet groups found. These were based upon studies that showed how many fecal pellets a deer produced in a day. Of course they soon discovered how variable that was (as you could imagine), how difficult it might be to determine age, etc., and moved on to something else. I'm unsure of how many states actually still use fecal counts. Most have moved on to other techniques.

Spotlight surveys are popular, however they have their own issues. How much land is surveyed, how likely are deer to be visible from a road, are you seeing "visible" deer, can you classify the deer you see and so on.

Aerial surveys have similar issues, but they have the luxury of not being bound to roads and the obvious effects that roads have on animal behavior. Many of the issues can be corrected for by modelling the "visibility" of the animals, and this is done with a preliminary, "calibrating" study to determine the visibility bias. Basically, using collared animals you collect info on the groups of animals that you spot as well as those you miss. With all that info you can then estimate how many animals you missed based upon the information from the groups of animals that you observed.

Most surveys don't have to sample the entire area to calculate an estimate. The models extrapolate from sampling portions. This can still be done even when densities vary greatly across an area using a stratified random sample. Units are broken into smaller portions and areas are sampled and classified into whatever density category they might be estimated to fall into. This can be estimated based upon habitat, personal observations, etc. Much of this is like why states can estimate age structure while only sampling a small portion of the harvest. If you get a large enough sample (which doesn't have to be that large) you can be quite confident of what the whole population looks like, within a certain confidence interval.

FLIR surveys work with similar methodology and can be more accurate, it's just that they are exceptionally expensive. They are much safer than low level flights, but take a lot of time to analyze and can perform poorly under certain circumstances.

Like I mentioned earlier, it isn't always the overall number that matters so much as it is the trend of data from year to year or over a number of years.

I know I'm probably leaving something out and likely botching my explanation of the methodology, but it's been a few years....

I'm surprised QDMA doesn't put out a similar harvest map given they receive a lot of the harvest data from agencies every year.
“Curiosity never killed the cat. The cat died from stupidity, or maybe an overdose of mice.” -The Old Man


  • Advertisement

Return to “Deer Hunting”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: theAdmiral and 103 guests