Deer processing in Western PA

[rwsaunders]

First time that I can recall being able to shoot both bucks and does on the same dates early in the season, as we are overrun with deer. Now the local deer processors are strained to the max so Jorn, I see a side hustle for you in that out-building of yours.

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/r...nes-Newsletter

[Mark Kelly]

If you want to shoot deer, come to Australia.

Some dickhead Englishmen decided to make the world's most ecologically distinct continent more like "the old country" so they formed an acclimatisation society and brought in things they could shoot, including deer*. In the absence of predators (apart from dickhead Englishmen) the entirely predictable happened.



* This despite the fact that kangaroos are basically deer with more interesting locomotion and a cute way of carrying the kids around.

[vertical_doug]

If you want to shoot deer, come to Australia.

Some dickhead Englishmen decided to make the world's most ecologically distinct continent more like "the old country" so they formed an acclimatisation society and brought in things they could shoot, including deer. In the absence of predators (apart from dickhead Englishmen) the entirely predictable happened.

Wow, you have Fallow, Red, Sambar, Rusa , Hog and Chital... I never knew. They are like locusts.
Another dickhead Englishmen (Duke of Bedford) decided releasing Muntjac (barking deer from southeast asia) in Southeast England (Bedfordshire) was a good idea back in 1901....

[Mark Kelly]

/ They are like locusts.

They are indeed, but at least the locusts belong here. We even have our own unique indigenous species of plague locust, though who knows what they ate until us whitefellas decided to plant enormous quantities of wheat.

[j44ke]

First time that I can recall being able to shoot both bucks and does on the same dates early in the season, as we are overrun with deer. Now the local deer processors are strained to the max so Jorn, I see a side hustle for you in that out-building of yours.

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/r...nes-Newsletter

We've invited two of our neighbors to hunt on our property this year. Older guys who know the landscape and are willing to obey orders not to shoot coyotes or bobcats. Most of the young hunters around here seem to be card-carrying dickheads. Even these guys have the wrong info on how coyote populations respond to hunting. Meanwhile the deer are getting worse and worse. I don't understand this 3-4 week hunting season, except that the woods are filled with card-carrying dickheads with rifles. The state needs to provide more support for culling by encouraging doe hunting, like a bounty system or something. These guys will sit all day waiting for a 10pt buck while a herd of does and yearlings mills around underneath their tree stand fattening up on the growth tips off saplings. Shoot the damn deer. Venison sausage is genderless.

I blame Walt Disney for this mess.

[caleb]

Even these guys have the wrong info on how coyote populations respond to hunting. Meanwhile the deer are getting worse and worse.

A couple packs of wolves would fix both problems up right quick.

Of course, then you'd have wolves.

[htwoopup]

I don't understand this 3-4 week hunting season, except that the woods are filled with card-carrying dickheads with rifles. The state needs to provide more support for culling by encouraging doe hunting, like a bounty system or something. These guys will sit all day waiting for a 10pt buck while a herd of does and yearlings mills around underneath their tree stand fattening up on the growth tips off saplings. Shoot the damn deer. Venison sausage is genderless.

I blame Walt Disney for this mess.

At our house in Fire Island we are over run by deer. There used to be foxes which kept things under control but they all died during some kind of mange thing. Fire Island is a National Park that people happen to live in. It isn't really an island but a barrier beach. The thinking is that the deer/foxes/etc all migrated there originally when Long Island was more arboreal and the bay had frozen over.

Any way, because of the nature (no pun intended) of the rules and regulations of the National Park there has been a no messing with the natural things. Until the deer got out of control years ago.

Then there was a solution...they called it the immuno-contraception program. I don't know why the immuno part but basically Park Rangers would shoot the does with some kind of contraceptive. The immuno part may be because what happened is that the does wanted nothing to do with the bucks. Which did cause some weird scenes with some pretty charged up bucks during that season. But the deer population became more sensible when that was going on.

Then, somehow it became a political thing about contraception and they stopped the program and the population sky rocketed.

So, they decided to do a one day "hunt" to cull the herd. All kinds of folks applied for the limited number of permits. They didn't bag any deer because supposedly the skill required to shoot one in the woods is different than tracking one in the sand or something.

Again, something I didn't understand because the deer will come up to me on the back deck to eat a carrot out of any child's hand.

They started up the hunt again and people went crazy because of they are basically outdoor pets and as you say, Disney. So, they promised that all of the meat would go to a food bank for the homeless. Which then meant that hunters didn't apply for the permits because they couldn't keep their kill.

So, the Park Service Rangers did it while no one was looking.

But we still are over run by deer.

I don't know why I babbled all this at y'all.

Perhaps it's because this whole area of people living in an area with nature and then messing with it, not messing with it and so on is just so messed up.

But maybe in Hillsdale you could look into this immune-contraceptive thing. And then you wouldn't need wolves.

[j44ke]

Deer swim pretty well. Most of the Long Island coastal/barrier island deer got there by swimming. Every once in a while a deer swims to Manhattan and either gets hit by car or taken out by DEC. The contraceptive thing doesn't work because it isn't comprehensive. Here in Hillsdale, one doe had twin yearlings the first year we were here, and each year since at least one of those twins has raised twins. Together those twins have produced 7 fawns in about 3 years. Only one of those fawns was a male. With all those does, reproduction is less competitive so even the wimpy single-point bucks are getting laid. You could have one pimply faced high pitched voice teenager buck and every doe would come visiting. They aren't bashful.

Machine guns. Grenades. Tigers.

[Mark Kelly]

I don't know why the immuno part but basically Park Rangers would shoot the does with some kind of contraceptive.

The contraceptive here is an agent that encourages the animal's immune system to attack some process vital for reproduction (such as production of a hormone that promotes estrus). Think of being able to induce the equivalent of type 1 diabetes but instead of attacking cells that produce insulin it attacks cells that produce sex hormones (or some other vital part of reproduction).

There is research on this being used against rabbits in Australia, they have been a plague here for more than a century (see comments about dickhead Englishmen above).

[vertical_doug]

The problem is Fire Island is basically car free. Everyone knows the only natural predator of the white tail deer in the Eastern US is the automobile.

[rwsaunders]

Our borough police “sharpshooters” (that’s what they call themselves in the borough newsletter, not me) have a go at the deer on full moon nights, so I know to lay low when I see the spotlights and hear the rifle fire. There is a private road that parallels the rear of our property and there are at least 100 or so old apple trees on the neighboring property, so guess where one of the ambushes takes place every month? As long as I don’t have a window blown out, I’m ok with it and we are allowed to have police approved archers on the property, but try to find someone who wants to man a tree stand and not be allowed to have a nip while waiting for Bucky to pass under.

[htwoopup]

there are at least 100 or so old apple trees on the neighboring property, so guess where one of the ambushes takes place every month?

Fire Island deer story.

Normally they are quite peaceful. And you never see them on the ocean side beach because there is nothing for them to eat there and the ocean is, well, the Atlantic so rarely calm.

One of our neighbors went up north to Vermont to visit his in-laws who have an apple farm with the obligatory roadside stand and cider mill.

He brought back, in his pickup truck with the dump bed on it, a whole load of mash (or whatever the apple mush at the bottom of the cider mill vat is called).

He dumped it by the fire house which is just outside of town at the beginning of the forever green natural parkland.

Within hours there was a whole big herd of deer chowing down on the dumped apple mash.

Within hours the deer were getting into fights with each other.

Frolicking around like they were little puppies.

Stumbling and falling down and having a hard time getting back up.

Climbing on the dunes and cavorting in the wash of the ocean waves.

Evidently they were, in typical Fire Island fashion, a bit bombed and having a jolly good time.

I gotta figure out how to copy the movie we took of it to electronic technology for posterity.

[Too Tall]

Interesting conversation. I've said before I'm managing some acres ontop a mtn. for our camping group. For the first time in too long I've given permission to one of the men who do jobs for us to hunt.

if anyone wants a good squirrel recipe let me know. It's easy ;)

[Todd Amunrud]

http://https://www.mprnews.org/story...f-meat-cutters

Timely story for our area.

[vertical_doug]

Fire Island deer story.

Normally they are quite peaceful. And you never see them on the ocean side beach because there is nothing for them to eat there and the ocean is, well, the Atlantic so rarely calm.

One of our neighbors went up north to Vermont to visit his in-laws who have an apple farm with the obligatory roadside stand and cider mill.
...................................snip........... ......................
Evidently they were, in typical Fire Island fashion, a bit bombed and having a jolly good time.

I gotta figure out how to copy the movie we took of it to electronic technology for posterity.

I'll see your drunk deer, and raise you a cocaine laced bear!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...smugglers.html

[Too Tall]

I will never give my dog beer
I will never give my dog beer
I will never give my dog beer
I will never give my dog beer
again