Many sportsmen, myself included, have lauded the need for the NYSDEC to micro-manage the deer herd. I have heard fairly regularly the rationale ‘that the DEC does not have the manpower, nor the budget’, to forego a plan that includes micro-managing a deer herd. While we can’t expect a biologist behind every tree, I don’t think it unfair to expect them to ask the right people the right questions.
(For most of your edification, Region 2 (NYC) was excluded from the planning of the recent DEC Deer Meetings. It was not until I drove upstate and informed Dir. Riexinger of this oversight, that a meeting was hastily planned. I am one of those that have always felt that arbitrarily excluding 55,000+ license buyers from the process is a bad way to begin gathering information.)
It seems, as usual, that I disagree with the direction, or lack of direction that the NYSDEC is going. Here is why!
The DEC is mired down in hunter satisfaction surveys for the third time concerning antler restrictions. Part of the problem is how they have solicited the questions and answers in these surveys. Somewhere along the line, some genius decided that instead of asking a straight question and getting a straight answer that it would be more fun to ask a question and get several degrees of answers that could be manipulated to say one thing while it really might have meant something else depending on the chronological order that they were listed in or how perhaps a bureaucracy was leaning that day! I think you get the idea!
Instead of sending out these inane surveys and waiting for Mrs. O’Leary to milk the cows before she sent it back half filled in, or with hanging chads; or not bothering to do anything but throw it in the composter, it should be made mandatory to have to fill out a questionnaire at the time of issuance of a hunting license or when filing for a doe management permit. The following questions, when answered, will give the DEC a wealth of information that will assist in micro-managing the herd:
1) What Wildlife Management Unit do you do the majority of your deer hunting in?
________
2) How many days a year do you spend afield hunting deer with a firearm?
3+_____ 7+ _____ 12+_____
3) Are you a meat hunter? YES_____ NO_____
4) Would you be willing to harvest a doe for the venison donation program?
YES_____ NO_____
5) Do you believe that antler restrictions will have a positive influence on deer hunting in your WMU? YES_____ NO_____
Five questions, that when answered, gives the DEC a better way to insure that doe management gets done! For too long we have used a lottery system that DOES NOT work! Give the majority (85%) of deer management permits to those that will get the job done. Give 10 or 15% of the permits to those that would use one if they had enough time or were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
With the information gleaned from question #’s 1, 2, & 3 it should be pretty easy to predict who should be placed in the top positions for a doe management permit in specific WMU’s.
Question’s 2, 3, & 4 will give you a pretty good idea who is capable and willing to fill more than one permit.
Question #5 unequivocally gives you the answer as to who wants AR’s and what areas they should be implemented first. No need for a super majority either – simple old democracy will do – majority rules!
SOME SIMPLE RULES:
A) Meat hunters must donate their 2nd doe to the venison donation program.
B) Food banks would have a monumental amount of venison in them and the meat could be distributed in two ways.
1) 60% of the meat to the banks for the poor and
2) A reasonable amount of meat could be given to a hunter who had applied for a permit (and paid his $10 fee) and did not get one.
3) Those that donate a deer would be entitled to another permit for their own consumption or donation.
SCORING: You need a minimum of 6 points to be considered for a deer management permit. 10 points would put you in an optimal position to get more than 1 deer management permit.
Question #2 3+ (2 points) 7+ (3 points) 12+ (4 points)
Question #3 A YES answer is worth (3 points)
Question #4 A YES answer is worth (3 points)
I understand that perhaps wildlife biologists are too busy saving ecosystems around the state and they are much too busy to sit around collating the extensive information that my five questions will render, but this information could be gathered and data-banked by resourceful college students from science programs across the state.
All of this plan, is contingent on the DEC doing a better job of figuring out where there is need for doe culling, but even with their current formula, assigning permits should assure a significantly higher success percentage then the “hoping” and “praying” methodology that is implored today!
Now, some will say that my plan is too simplistic. I say, in order to fulfill certain management goals it is imperative to ask hunters specific questions. For far too long, the DEC is absolutely positively guilty of dancing and skirting issues and their mandates. A system that counts on hunter’s mistakes to fulfill management goals is lamentable! A system that stipulates that outrageous criteria be met, as in the case of antler restriction expansion, and then reneges on their own criterion, well that is pathetic and contemptible!
Oh, one other thing! It’s obviously my blog and I have always believed that criticism is only fair if you inform those being criticized of how I feel about things. Printed below are the e-mail addresses of the upper echelon of the NYSDEC that I have sent my blog too. While I try to let them know exactly how I feel, please feel free to e-mail them your own feelings on the issues, and tell them I sent you!
Alexander “Pete” Grannis --- petegrannis@gw.dec.state.ny.us
Patricia Riexinger --- pxriexin@gw.dec.state.ny.us
John Major --- jxmajor@gw.dec.state.ny.us
Gordon Batcheler --- grbatche@gw.dec.state.ny.us
Jeremy Hurst --- jehurst@gw.dec.state.ny.us
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