10 Best Nikon Hunting Scope

Best Nikon Hunting Scope in 2023

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Antler Restrictions

History of Deer conservation leading to today's current hunting and antler restrictions. Current success rates of Pennsylvania and Texas antler restrictions.

In the mid 1900s we shifted our focus to a more thought out management program that produced a healthy herd number as well as quality animals for harvest. This is the time frame that most states introduced wildlife conservation areas and local management plans. These management plans continued to develop through trial and error until the formation of Private hunting organizations, researchers, and university studies that pointed them in the direction of today's plans. Today the leaders in white-tail management are private organizations such as White-Tails Unlimited and the Quality Deer Management Association. These groups forming their roots in the late 70s and early 80s have paved the way in educating the public and researching methods that create high quality healthy deer herds. QDMA is the leader in research and education, and is responsible for most of our scientific knowledge of deer and their life cycle. The majority of the information we have today about deer have come from deer hunters belonging to these organizations and not anti-hunters or even traditional scientist. It is even these hunters whose hunting licenses' pay for state operated wildlife areas and research. As former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said, "It's NOT the people who hug the trees, it's the people who hide behind the trees and wait for something to come out who are the real conservationists."

With a brief history of past management problems and knowledge on how we now receive our research, I would conclude we are headed in the correct direction. With our plan to produce a quality deer herd and maintain our lands carrying capacity, we need to decide what deer to harvest every year. This is where the implementation of antler restriction comes into play. "Antler restriction" meaning whether or not we want to put a certain criteria on the antler size of the bucks we can legally harvest each year. The ultimate desired outcome for this is to increase harvest of mature bucks in most cases meaning 4.5 years old and over. Typically the older the deer the larger the antlers, thus creating a minimum antler size would decrease the number of yearling and immature bucks harvested each year. A better spread of age groups increases your herds health and overall harvest potential as well as breeds healthier genetics into your herd longer. With the lingering stigma that harvesting does is a bad thing hunting pressure is still primarily placed on bucks of all age groups. This pressure lands primarily on the shoulders of the young 1.5 to 2.5 year old bucks and created a out of balance number of buck that reach maturity. All of these factors lead to the need for guidelines to once again protect our herds.

Antler restriction have taken form all across the country in one form or another. In Texas they have had great success by using both the number of points on one side too an inside spread measurement, inside spread meaning greatest distance across measured from the inside of the antlers. According to Texas parks and Wildlife web page these regulations have changed their percentages from 52% of bucks harvested in 2001 1.5 years old or younger to 21% in 2020. The percentage of mature bucks being taken each year has done the opposite and increased from 4% to 41% of all bucks taken in the same years. These counties restricted their hunters to a 13 inch inside spread or greater. The down fall of some restrictions is what is called "high grading" this is when you eliminate all the young bucks of superior genetics. A brief explanation of this would be when your deer have very good genes and are growing this size antler at a younger age. If you harvest them you do not allow the genes to be passed down and effectively drain your quality genetics. Texas parks and wildlife solved this problem and had enough success with their programs to add an additional buck tag. With this additional tag one of your two bucks must have at least one unbranched antler. This second tag levels out the possibility of genetic losses and increases harvest potential.

Pennsylvania has also made drastic changes in their harvesting of antlered deer regulations. Their regulations have been place to accomplish another goal of antler restrictions, the need for increased doe harvest. Counties in PA implemented a point restriction per side of 3 and in some counties 4. Their mature bucks harvested numbers have increased nearly as much as TX. Research done my Jason Miles states they have also accomplished their goal of doe harvest increase by 65%. He also states that the yearling buck survivability has increased from 87% percent of all bucks being harvested each year to 57% allowing them more time to mature. A side piece of information is the fact that their buck to doe ration went from 1-14 to 1-2 which increases potential to spread genetic dominance.

Antler restrictions are our next logical move to continue the pursuit of healthy mature deer herds. We need these regulation put into place in order to prevent the past from repeating itself, and our herds getting either to low in numbers or increasing past the local carrying capacity of our lands. The best tools in getting these goals accomplished are educating our hunters and future hunters in our past mistakes and contribute to continued research for our future. There are pros and cons to antler restriction I agree, however I have successfully harvested a mature buck due to these regulations and can clearly see the results.

Bibliography

1. Miles, Jason. (2004). Are Antler Restrictions Working in PA. (2004, October)

2. Texas Department of Wildlife (2020). Antler Restriction Regulation (2020, January 26).

3. Winand C.J. (2005). Antler Restrictions: Do They Work? lt; gt;

(2005, February 15).