white-tailed deer - Wildlife Management Pro

Case Shows How Easy CWD Could Spread

CWD could spread easier than you think

Criminal charges recently filed against a father and son who ran a Kent County deer farm provide a shocking look at just how easy chronic wasting disease (CWD) might have spread to Michigan’s wild deer herd. Michigan Department of Natural Resources agents say a day after CWD was confirmed in a deer from their herd, the pair crept onto their quarantined farm at midnight, tranquilized a deer and loaded it into a trailer. DNR agents watching the property say they saw it all. When stopped on a road, the two told DNR officers they planned to release the deer into the wild. They didn’t have proper paperwork for the deer, and wanted to get rid of it. However, tests later showed the deer free of CWD.

The DNR recently said that it may have found the source of the always-fatal disease that’s similar to mad cow disease. The taxidermy shop next to the Kent County deer farm had accepted two deer from customers who illegally brought them from CWD zones in South Dakota and Wyoming. Continue reading Case Shows How Easy CWD Could Spread

Texas to Expand Antler Restrictions?

Will antler restriction regulations expand in Texas?

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is look at changing up the State’s hunting regulations. The white-tailed deer proposals are part of statewide proposed hunting and fishing regulation changes for the upcoming 2009-2010 season. One key proposed change involves further expansion of the department’s successful antler restriction regulations into 52 additional counties where biologists have identified a need to provide greater protection of younger buck deer. In these counties, data indicates more than 55 percent of the harvested bucks are two-and-a-half years of age or younger, which creates an imbalance in the deer herd age structure.

According to Clayton Wolf, TPWD big game program director, the antler restrictions have improved age structure while maintaining ample hunting opportunity, based on data to date in the 61 counties where the rule is currently in effect. The impacted counties are listed below: Continue reading Texas to Expand Antler Restrictions?

Louisiana White-tailed Deer Research Continues

Deer with radio collar

A study entitled “Population Characteristics of a White-tailed Deer Herd in a Bottomland Hardwood Forest of South-central Louisiana” has entered its final year. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and Louisiana State University (LSU) Agriculture Center have spearheaded the study with help from various contributors.

The primary objectives of the study are to assess range and movements of male and female white-tailed deer, evaluate age and sex-specific harvest rates of white-tailed deer and evaluate survival and causes of death among male and female white-tailed deer in a Louisiana bottomland hardwood forest.

Researchers are conducting the study on approximately 40,000 acres of bottomland hardwood forest located west of Baton Rouge and east of the Atchafalaya Basin. The study area is currently leased to more than 30 private hunting clubs, and each club belongs to a cooperative that promotes quality deer management on the property. A. Wilbert’s Sons L.L.C. is the primary landowner and cooperator and is also providing technical, logistical and housing support for the researchers. Continue reading Louisiana White-tailed Deer Research Continues

Whitetails Still Rutting in Kansas

The rifle whitetail action in north-central Kansas continued to be slow but steady through the first full weekend of the season. The hunters and outfitters of Washington County, Kansas continue to be largely frustrated in finding the big bucks that this country is known for, although a handful of really nice bucks have shown up in the back of pickups at the local diner around lunch time. The freezing rain that fell across much of the state on saturday morning dried up within 24 hours or so, making dirt roads passable again. Even with access restored, there was still pretty little shooting going on. Continue reading Whitetails Still Rutting in Kansas

Big Nebraska Whitetails

The good news and the bad news about Nebraska’s deer season is that it’s 9-days of rifle hunting smack during the middle of the rut. Good news, because hunting rutting whitetails is a hoot. Bad news, because young bucks experience lots of mortality, many never getting a chance to reach their potential. Couple this with the fact that hunters can each take two bucks (again, a good news / bad news kind of thing), and the bucks get hit really hard each year.

The 2007 Nebraska season appears to have been about average. The weather was warm, the warmest deer hunt I’ve ever been on, but the bucks were in full rut.

I hunted near Ogallala for the last 3 days or so of the season that opened November 10th and ended on the 18th.

The 4×4 I took was very hot on the tail of a doe, chasing her aggressively through the brush. Through a combination of tough luck and being selective (OK, mostly tough luck), I had not tagged a buck for several years, and when I saw he was a 4-point I knew I wanted to take him. Continue reading Big Nebraska Whitetails

Whitetail Deer Fibroma: Deer Warts

Wart found on the skin of white-tailed deer and other members of the deer family are properly termed fibromas. These fibromas are popularly referred to as skin tumors, or simply deer warts. Histopathologists identify skin tumors from whitetail as either papillomas, fibromas, or papillofibromas depending upon the predominate type of tissue making up the tumor.

There is evidence suggesting that the skin tumors and warts common to white-tailed deer are actually caused by one kind of virus, and that the differences that have been described for their appearance is due to age of the tumor in question. Obviously, a tumor that is 1 week old will look much different than a tumor that is 1 year old. However, for the purpose of the article, I will refer to all of them as collectively as fibroma. Continue reading Whitetail Deer Fibroma: Deer Warts