Posted on 03/14/2011 4:53:55 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
This year's particularly harsh winter has hit northern Minnesota's deer population hard, and the survivors could even be in trouble if spring weather doesn't kick in soon.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says it is finding more and more dead whitetails in the woods, and the agency expects even more to surface over the next two weeks or more. That's because the animals can't find food and become vulnerable to death by natural causes or predators such as wolves, the Mesabi Daily News of Virginia, Minn., reports. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a deer died before or after the wolves got to it.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
If the snow doesn't go away pretty soon, we'll be back to bucks only, or no season at all. This will hurt the state's economy because, sadly, there are many who will not buy a license if they can only shoot a buck. They want meat and does and fawns are easy.
If it's bucks only, I'll be out there. It's all about the hunt for me and those I hunt with. If there's no season at all, we'll be out there feeding the critters for the the future.
The other side of the dilema is, if the snow melts quickly, lots of folks will be screwed by what has been predicted to be record flooding......
Of interest....
NJ has surplus deer and black bear. $100 per head, just pay me and come and get them.
We're used to long, miserable winters up here; but this is getting ridiculous.
I'm guessing global warming is the culprit. /s
Sounds like a no-brainer to me.........If the carcass was gutted but not consumed, the wolves got it. If the carcass was gutted and consumed, the wolves got it...........
Reads like the Minn. DNR is still in a state of denial........
I hunt the Bemidji/Blackduck areas....
Growing up in northern Michigan, I never found that to be the case. After all the snow was gone I always wondered how the bark was stripped from sapplings and small branches eaten eight to ten feet up on the trees and bushes.........After I got older I realized the deer were standing in 4 feet of snow........
There was never a shortage of food but then again, there wasn't a growing predation by wolves either.
Deer herds can rebound in a few years. Utah lost 90% of its herd in 1993. They’re back, totalling cars and eating the shrubbery all over the place. Lots of does with twins and triplet fawns.
Ha, I went to school in Blackduck =)
Lotsa pines where I hunt....They don’t care for the bark...When it gets real bad, deep snow stops them from finding any ground food. They yard-up and the wolves move in and take the young and the sick....
I’ve watched a herd of thirty grow to a hundred over the past several years in one field on Maryland’s eastern shore. I can’t imagine how the farmer sustains the crop losses.
BTW... I thought I was the only one on FR who has even HEARD of the Quicksilver Messenger Service! LOL!
Good news for farmers!
If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
Absolutely!
I’d be happy to send a few up from Indiana for you. Depending on the county you can take up to 4 does during gun season. When I was in the 60’s if you got a buck that was a BIG deal. Pheasants would run you over though. Now you have to shoot deer in self-dense and I haven’t seen a bird in years.
The four doe thing is what killed the hunting, up here. As you well know, we have long hard winters here and shooting all the does will come back to bite you.
The DNR isn’t as sharp as you and I.
We only shoot pheasants here at game farms.
Very sad.
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