Department receives deer video
To help landowners manage deer herds on private land, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation recently received 90 copies of a specialized deer management video.
The video, titled, Let Them Go So They Can Grow, will be available to Department wildlife biologists for use during presentations to sportsman's clubs and other groups, said Alan Peoples, the Department's Chief of Wildlife. It explains how harvesting does and sparing young bucks can help landowners balance deer herds and improve the size of individual bucks.
"The information in the video can be useful to landowners who have overpopulations of female deer and who are interested in improving the quality of their buck herd," Peoples said. "Obviously, every landowner may have a different situation in regard to deer, but this video can provide some useful tips for landowners and hunt lease members."
The videos were a cooperative gift from the Oklahoma Station of the Safari Club International and the Quality Deer Management Association. For more information on the QDMA, call 1-800-209-DEER (3337) or go online to www.qdma.com.
With the spring fawning season nearly over, outdoor enthusiasts may have noticed more young deer than usual.
If you see a fawn without its mother, don't worry. The parent is nearby. She's just waiting for you to leave so she can move her fawn off to safety.
In Oklahoma, most fawns are born in May and June, and start becoming visible in mid to late June. Unfortunately, some well-meaning wildlife enthusiasts often see fawns alone in the open and mistake them for being abandoned. Attempting to "save" the fawn, they actually compromise the fawn's ability to survive in the wild by separating it from its mother, said Mike Shaw, wildlife research supervisor for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
"Don't be tempted to rescue a newborn fawn because you think it's abandoned," Shaw said. "Interfering with wildlife in such a matter creates a multitude of problems which could ultimately affect the welfare of the animal. Take photographs, if you wish, but don't linger too long, and do not touch or attempt to touch the animal."
Most whitetailed deer fawns are born in a relatively short time frame as part of a phenomenon called, "predator swamping." By birthing most of their fawns in a narrow time window, whitetailed deer ensure their overall survival by "swamping" the woods with more fawns than predators could possibly consume. Predators will eliminate some deer, of course, but the overwhelming majority will survive until they are able to fend for themselves.
When deer herds are out of balance, the rut and fawning periods often last longer than they do in well-balanced herds. If there aren't enough bucks to breed all the does during their first estrous cycle, the does will cycle again about a month later. Consequently, the fawns conceived during the second cycle will be born a month later than normal. With a longer fawning season, coyotes and other large predators can consume a greater percentage of the annual supply of newborn fawns.
"By educating hunters about the importance of herd health and balance, we hope to encourage them to harvest does and achieve better reproduction," Shaw said, "both in terms of breeding and fawning."
While coyotes do not kill a significant number of adult deer, they will consume fawns whenever possible. This is especially true during the first few weeks of a fawn's life when it is unable to travel with its mother.
So, if you see a fawn that appears to be alone, leave it alone. Nature is always an animal's best defense.
OKLAHOMA VENISON AND ELK SAFE TO EAT
Recent media reports linking eating wild deer
meat to a form of “mad cow disease”
have been sensationalized, and hunters should not
been worried about their venison, according to
officials with the Oklahoma Department of
Wildlife Conservation.
A degenerative brain disease similar to mad cow
disease - called Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in
deer and elk - has been recently confirmed in a
captive elk herd in Oklahoma County, but has
never been documented in wild deer or elk in
Oklahoma. Even if the disease did exist in wild
herds, there has never been a confirmed case of a
hunter contracting it through hunting or eating
venison.
“Chronic Wasting Disease has occurred in
Colorado and Wyoming for 30 years, but nobody who
has hunted there or eaten venison from those
animals has come down with CWD,” said Mike
Shaw, wildlife research supervisor for the
Wildlife Department. “A hunter from
Miami
contracted Creuztfelt-Jacob Disease (CJD), a
related spongiform encephalopathy, in 1999, but
the National Center for Disease Control never
established a positive connection to his eating
deer meat. We even investigated the possible link
by sampling 16 deer from the area where the man
hunted. None of the deer tested positive for
Chronic Wasting Disease. In addition, we have
tested more than 4,500 deer from other parts of the
state, and those deer have all been negative for CWD.”
In fact, nationally there are over 11 million big
game hunters, and only two confirmed reports of
hunters contracting Creuztfelt-Jacob Disease,
Shaw said. The Center for Disease Control
investigated both cases and concluded that their
contracting CJD was coincidental to hunting.
“There is always a risk involved with
handling any type of animals, domestic or wild,
but that risk is very small,” he said. “The
odds are many times greater that someone would be
struck by lightning or die from a bee sting.”
Shaw said there are two precautions that anyone
concerned about chronic wasting disease can take.
Wearing protective gloves when dressing and
butchering animals and avoiding consumption of
brain and spinal cord tissue are good
precautionary measures.
Dr. Gene Eskew, a veterinarian with the Oklahoma
Department of Agriculture, said the captive elk
in Oklahoma County are under quarantine, and they
do not believe any infected elk have been killed
for human consumption. Only four of the 140 elk
have contracted the disease thus far. Agriculture
Department officials will be watching for
additional elk deaths, and will test the animals
immediately through the National Veterinary
Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
“As a biological scientist who has studied
deer most of my life, I can honestly say that I
don’t see any danger in eating deer meat
because there just isn’t any scientific
evidence proving that Chronic Wasting Disease can
cause Creuztfelt-Jacob Disease,” Shaw said. “There
are far too many other things to worry about;
real dangers like driving to work, having a heart
attack because you don’t exercise enough or
getting stung by a bee.”