Too many deer Artical

[wallydog1]

Saw it on another site.
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/con...1_6S67V6J.html

[lung buster]

Linky not working for me :confused:

[trekker]

I couldn't get the link up either. Is this the one about the farmers referring to crop damage?

[coonskinner]

nope it dont work...if its crop damage ,deer are only part of the problem...i remember when most farmers trapped to make a few dollars on the pelts and to minimize crop loss due to animals eatin it an also they hunted deer an grounhawgs too...odnr/hunters needs tuh work to git prices back up on pelts...:mischeif:

[wallydog1]

sorry guy's I just copied it.
Depending on who is rendering judgment, Ohio has a deer population problem or it does not.

"I know hunters who would be happy to see a million deer out there," said Dave Risley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife's supervisor of wildlife management and research. "I know farmers who think one deer is too many."

Between those extremes lies a gamut of emotion-charged opinions among those with a stake -- psychic, economic or both -- in a large but elegant, prized but destructive creature.

"I tell people that deer management is a case of ticking off as few people as possible," Risley said, only partly in jest.

Agriculture is big business in Ohio; so is deer hunting. About 500,000 citizens hunt deer off and on, spending what the Wildlife Division estimates to be $266 million annually. Almost 91 percent of Ohio hunters in a given year pursue deer, boosting the economy by buying guns, ammunition, gear, gasoline and lodging in addition to spending $19 apiece for more than 325,000 hunting licenses and $24 each for more than 450,000 deer permits.

Without a significant trade in mounting deer heads, businesses such as Central Flyway Taxidermy probably would not exist.

"Deer are my No. 1 mount. They're over 50 percent of my work," said Ernie Wallace, who operates Central Flyway in Westerville. "The deer herd and me go hand in hand."

Business is good because, in many places, whitetail deer are almost underfoot. Almost invisible a few decades ago, they show up almost everywhere these days. Deer don't require the kind of space where the antelope play.

"They are incredibly adaptable animals," said Mike Tonkovich, a Wildlife Division biologist who tracks the deer herd in the state. "They can spend all day in a field that's big enough to hold two or three houses, and then they move out at night."

Unregulated hunting and habitat loss had wiped out Ohio's wild whitetails by the early 1900s, but the population began inching upward in the 1920s. Then it soared. Deer came into the state from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, eventually filling a friendly landscape created by the abandonment of marginal farms and the rebound of forestland after World War II.

In September, before the start of the latest four-month deer-hunting season, wildlife officials estimated the herd at 600,000, down from a modern high of 650,000-plus a few years before. By the end of the latest bow and gun seasons, hunters had pared it by more than 237,000 bucks and does, easily a season record.

"Even with the record harvest, we're projecting an increased population next year, probably to around 650,000," Risley said.

Such a forecast does not come as welcome news to farmers, orchardists and nursery-stock growers who say they are being overrun, as one landowner put it, "by long-legged rats with white tails."

If such a depiction sounds harsh, it is not uncommon. The Ohio Fruit Growers Society has called for a deer density of no more than five per square mile anywhere in the state. A delegation at the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting late last year demanded that the Wildlife Division make efforts to reduce the state herd to no more than 250,000, a level approximating that of the late 1980s.

"The landowners remembered 250,000 deer as the population when damage was last acceptable," said Larry Gearhardt, the bureau's director of local affairs. "The numbers now are beyond acceptable."

Wildlife officials have called 250,000 "unrealistic." While deer densities might be close to five per square mile in the heavily farmed and relatively treeless counties of western Ohio, populations of 45 per square mile are common in wooded eastern and southeastern counties.

"We don't have a deer population problem," Risley likes to say, "we have a deer distribution problem."

Where the land can handle lots of deer, Ohio bag limits encourage hunters to kill several. Yet, the take in some places isn't always sufficient.

Clark Sheets tries to raise corn and soybeans on part of 500 acres he owns in Hocking County north of Logan, an acknowledged hot spot. After a personal inspection, Risley told Sheets that recent crop damage on the land was the worst he'd seen in his 30 years in wildlife management.

Sheets, a Farm Bureau member, said his family has worked the land there for more than 100 years, but he wonders whether deer will allow him to continue.

"I'm at the point where, if something isn't done, I'm going to have to quit farming," he said.

Scores of whitetails live on and near Sheets' property despite heavy hunting. They browse young soybean tops to the point that the plants can't recover, reducing yields. Emerging corn shoots are grazed out of existence in the spring, and a portion of the surviving stalks get picked clean in the summer.

One county south, Fred and Lois Weaver have grown fruit trees and run a cut-your-own Christmas tree operation on 80 acres in Vinton County since 1963.

"We've always had moderate tree damage," Mr. Weaver said. "But the last six to 10 years, things have been getting worse."

Deer damage pines and spruces in several ways, he said. They eat the tops off young trees, which distorts their shape and makes them unmarketable as Christmas trees. Thus, many younger trees have to be replaced, and it takes about 10 years for an evergreen to reach Christmas-tree size.

As for the fruit bearers, deer "pick peaches and apples right off the trees," he said.

Because no study has taken place for more than a decade, the Farm Bureau doesn't have a dollar figure for crop damage, Gearhardt said. A survey a few years ago at Cornell University put the value of lost timber, crops and home plantings nationwide at $1.1 billion annually.

On the other hand, the Ohio Insurance Institute reports that the number of deer/vehicle accidents in the state decreased almost 9 percent from 2004 to 2005, the most recent statistics available.

Still, few states have more. Delaware, Franklin and Fairfield are among the counties with the most accidents. Deer collisions in 2005 cost nine human lives, 1,084 injuries and $71.1 million in damage, the institute reported.

Despite a widespread belief otherwise among hunters, auto insurers aren't pressuring the Wildlife Division to reduce the deer herd, said Mary Bonelli, the institute's senior vice president of public information. The collisions and resulting losses, she said, add up to a negligible number that "does not measure into the cost of premiums" paid by Ohio drivers.

Accidents and other problems have driven some communities, including a few in Franklin County, to wrestle with what some residents perceive as too many deer.

"We've had a (hunting) program going for 15 years," said Dennis Murphy, chief of police in Gahanna.

The program involves stationing hunters with bows at off-the-trail sites in parks. Few park strollers are aware that the hunters, who undergo special training and background checks, are around in the fall and winter. But the hunters aren't taking many deer.

"In 2006, we had 79 car crashes involving deer," he said, "and we had 29 deer killed by hunters this season."

Further, some of the problem deer, such as a growing number around Columbus Academy, are inaccessible to hunters for reasons of safety and public taste, Murphy said.

New Albany had 31 deer/vehicle accidents last year, one involving a police cruiser and $1,400 in damage. The village has tried since 2004 to deal with nuisance deer by enlisting bowhunters. But meager results have it considering other methods, including the use of sharpshooters, said Mark A. Chaney, the police chief.

New Albany's difficulty culling deer probably results from continuing residential development, Chaney said. Green spaces are shrinking to the point that hunters would be too close to backyards to get at herds. Deer, however, fit neatly into such spaces.

While contraceptives have been tried with limited success as a means to control confined deer populations, the efficacy of hunting as a control is unquestioned among wildlife managers.

"Man is the deer's only remaining predator," said John Watts, resource manager for the Metro Parks, which have instituted controlled hunts at two locations.

But where hunters don't or can't go, deer busily multiply. And that covers a lot of Ohio ground.

"In central and southeastern Ohio alone, landowners have something like 250,000 parcels of land that are 10 acres or less," Risley said. "If only one-quarter of them don't allow hunting, you've created a significant deer nursery."

Deer might bed on one property during the day and feed at night on the next. Unless all area landowners agree to kill deer or to allow them to be killed, the numbers will increase. The Wildlife Division offers landowners damage permits that allow year-round killing of nuisance deer, but about one-third of them are used, Risley said.

Hunters for years have complained that farmers create their own problems when they refuse to allow hunting. That criticism has some merit, the Farm Bureau's Gearhardt said.

"We are not blameless in this situation," he said. "We need to do something as an organization to get hunters and landowners together."

There are no easy answers, particularly for the Wildlife Division. It is charged with managing deer to minimize conflicts with humans but provide an economic incentive to satisfy the sportsmen who pay for operations. The sale of deer permits and hunting licenses accounted for about $19.5 million in 2006, about one-third of the division's revenues.

Deer hunters "are extremely important to us financially," Risley acknowledged.

Knowing that, the suspicious presume that the division wants to see as many deer as the land can hold. But Risley said the division recognizes that not only competing groups but also other wildlife have differing tolerance levels for deer. Allowing the herd to expand would lead to habitat degradation, and starvation and disease among the deer.

Ohio's management plan has produced relatively fewer deer than some nearby states, but they grow larger here than in most other places in North America. The number and size of deer draw hunters from outside the state.

"Ohio is considered in the top five if not in the top three of deer-hunting states," said Rob Sexton, a lobbyist with the Columbus-based U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, a national pro-hunting group.

Hunters wonder, though, about the division's proposal, announced in February, to expand already-liberal bag-limit regulations to allow more does to be killed starting in the fall.

Doe survival is considered key to managing deer numbers, and critics of the proposal questioned whether the division was caving in to Farm Bureau pressure for a smaller herd. Risley said the timing likely looked suspect to some sportsmen, coming a few months after the bureau's pronouncement.

But the two weren't directly related, he said. The fear, recognized for some time, is that the deer population can grow large enough that there aren't enough hunters to control it. Such a situation would appear to benefit no one.

outdoors@dispatch.com

Rules might change
The Ohio Wildlife Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on 2007-08 hunting regulations. Among changes to be considered is an expansion of urban deer permits to allow bowhunters to kill as many as three more does outside defined urban zones. Wildlife officials estimate that the change could result in the taking of 10,000 more deer than the record 237,000 during the most recent season. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Division of Wildlife's District 1 Office, 1500 Dublin Rd.

"I'm at the point where, if something isn't done, I'm going to have to quit farming."

Clark Sheets
Hocking County

[CritterGitter]

I think the real problem here is access. Go to Ohio's public land and you will see fewer deer than there were 3 years ago. Now, I know there are still plenty of deer on Ohio's public lands, but there is significantly less than just 3 years ago. Yet, the deer on private suburban areas goes unchecked and the farm bureau is all upset. The Farm Bureau and the DOW need to work together on a plan for more access.

They also need to revamp the urban deer program to include cheaper tag prices and a larger area. They could double the size for all of the current urban zones and make a bigger, more meaningful impact.

I will say that was a very detailed and informative article!

Kyle

[trekker]

I have knocked on about 100 doors sice I started hunting and I would guess around 10-15 people have givin me permission to hunt. I live in a 5 acre woods that is alright for hunting during gun law, but I'd really like to hunt the bigger sections within a mile of my house. Right across the field is a 30 acre woods owned by a non-farmer and nobody but him is allowed in. Across the road to the East of me is a nice 30 acre woods owned by a pretty big farmer and nobody is allowed in xcept him. To the North is a string of big wood blocks owned by a farming family and nobody but kin is allowed to hunt there. The farmers are whining about deer numbers, and still won't let anybody but a select few hunt thier land.

The farmers are already getting subsidized by the goverment. I wish the feds would subsidize factory jobs. Alot more people would be living better.

[dtabor]

Trekker,

Suprised to see someone from OH actually stating that....Ive said that quietly to myself every time I read these articles. The farmers, nursery and orchard owners all complaining about deer damaging their crops, yet I would be a month's pay you knock on their door and you'd get a no a majority of the time. Take that news article to the farmer that they quoted in there, highlight his statements and knock on his door asking permission....see what answer you get then!

Here in VT, it is different, you can hunt land if its not posted without permission. For ML season, we have to apply for lottery doe tags. Anyone owning 25+ acres can apply for a landowner permit and are almost guaranteed one, BUT, you have to have unposted land to qualify.

In my opinion, they can gripe all they want about damage to crops, but if they are closing off their land to all/most hunting, the state should turn their backs and refuse to assist them.

Hunting is the number one way to control herd numbers. They can bump up the limits all they want each year in these areas, but if landowners dont allow anyone to hunt, all you'll be doing is lowering numbers on public land and the deer will continue to hammer the private land.

D

[coonskinner]

I think the real problem here is access. Go to Ohio's public land and you will see fewer deer than there were 3 years ago. Now, I know there are still plenty of deer on Ohio's public lands, but there is significantly less than just 3 years ago. Yet, the deer on private suburban areas goes unchecked and the farm bureau is all upset. The Farm Bureau and the DOW need to work together on a plan for more access.

They also need to revamp the urban deer program to include cheaper tag prices and a larger area. They could double the size for all of the current urban zones and make a bigger, more meaningful impact.

I will say that was a very detailed and informative article!

Kyle
i can not agree with the less deer where i hunt...i see very lil diff. its been very consistant for yrs. and all that i talk to that live in the area i hunt see more deer on the roads they travel each day...i have 2 relatives an a freind that are school bus drivers on those roads an they are seein more deer...muh relatives an freinds with land tell me the same thang...nothin bout a decrease...an just the few times i went out last yr. i had deer under me...and i was in junk spots...i just dont buy the fewer deer but say it stays very close to stayin bout the same yr. after yr...:D

[wallydog1]

well the proposed regs are Approved,
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/Hunting/deer/huntingregsapproved.htm
I have to say I'am with Critter on this one.Deer numbers have gone down on the public land that I hunt which is a big Area.mean while in my back yard that is in a Urban Zone That doe's not allow hunting I had 25 deer in my back yard last week.I know they are using the Farming to push some of this but it is just as big a problem in these urban areas that do not Allow bow hunting.I would say if the farmers really want help they need to manage there property by contacting me and I will help with there Deer problem on there property :) I could use some of these problem deer to feed my labs so I don't have to buy the bogus pet food that they are selling now.

[coonskinner]

well the proposed regs are Approved,
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/Hunting/deer/huntingregsapproved.htm
I have to say I'am with Critter on this one.Deer numbers have gone down on the public land that I hunt which is a big Area.mean while in my back yard that is in a Urban Zone That doe's not allow hunting I had 25 deer in my back yard last week.I know they are using the Farming to push some of this but it is just as big a problem in these urban areas that do not Allow bow hunting.I would say if the farmers really want help they need to manage there property by contacting me and I will help with there Deer problem on there property :) I could use some of these problem deer to feed my labs so I don't have to buy the bogus pet food that they are selling now.

OBVIOUSLY YOURE NOT IN MY AREA...:D

[deerhunt45]

sorry guy's I just copied it.
Depending on who is rendering judgment, Ohio has a deer population problem or it does not.

"I know hunters who would be happy to see a million deer out there," said Dave Risley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife's supervisor of wildlife management and research. Well I'm not one of those hunters. Knowing the deer are out there is one thing, having deer behind every tree is another. Where's the challenge in that? "I know farmers who think one deer is too many." I have heard that comment many times from my farmer friends. But believe me, their properties get hunted.

Between those extremes lies a gamut of emotion-charged opinions among those with a stake -- psychic, economic or both -- in a large but elegant, prized but destructive creature. So true...

"I tell people that deer management is a case of ticking off as few people as possible," Risley said, only partly in jest. I don't think he meant that in jest at all. It's reality.

Agriculture is big business in Ohio; so is deer hunting. About 500,000 citizens hunt deer off and on, spending what the Wildlife Division estimates to be $266 million annually. Almost 91 percent of Ohio hunters in a given year pursue deer, boosting the economy by buying guns, ammunition, gear, gasoline and lodging in addition to spending $19 apiece for more than 325,000 hunting licenses and $24 each for more than 450,000 deer permits.

Without a significant trade in mounting deer heads, businesses such as Central Flyway Taxidermy probably would not exist.

"Deer are my No. 1 mount. They're over 50 percent of my work," said Ernie Wallace, who operates Central Flyway in Westerville. "The deer herd and me go hand in hand."

Business is good because, in many places, whitetail deer are almost underfoot. Almost invisible a few decades ago, they show up almost everywhere these days. Deer don't require the kind of space where the antelope play.

"They are incredibly adaptable animals," said Mike Tonkovich, a Wildlife Division biologist who tracks the deer herd in the state. "They can spend all day in a field that's big enough to hold two or three houses, and then they move out at night." They are incredibly good eating too :D

Unregulated hunting and habitat loss had wiped out Ohio's wild whitetails by the early 1900s, but the population began inching upward in the 1920s. Then it soared. Deer came into the state from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, eventually filling a friendly landscape created by the abandonment of marginal farms and the rebound of forestland after World War II.

In September, before the start of the latest four-month deer-hunting season, wildlife officials estimated the herd at 600,000, down from a modern high of 650,000-plus a few years before. By the end of the latest bow and gun seasons, hunters had pared it by more than 237,000 bucks and does, easily a season record. A successful season. The ODNR is doing a great job managing deer hunting in Ohio. It will be prosperous for generations if we don't turn the whole state into a parking lot and malls.

"Even with the record harvest, we're projecting an increased population next year, probably to around 650,000," Risley said. The argument with hunters is not necessarily deer numbers, rather access to them in certain areas.

Such a forecast does not come as welcome news to farmers, orchardists and nursery-stock growers who say they are being overrun, as one landowner put it, "by long-legged rats with white tails." :tsk:

If such a depiction sounds harsh, it is not uncommon. The Ohio Fruit Growers Society has called for a deer density of no more than five per square mile anywhere in the state. A delegation at the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting late last year demanded that the Wildlife Division make efforts to reduce the state herd to no more than 250,000, a level approximating that of the late 1980s.

"The landowners remembered 250,000 deer as the population when damage was last acceptable," said Larry Gearhardt, the bureau's director of local affairs. "The numbers now are beyond acceptable."

Wildlife officials have called 250,000 "unrealistic." While deer densities might be close to five per square mile in the heavily farmed and relatively treeless counties of western Ohio, populations of 45 per square mile are common in wooded eastern and southeastern counties.

"We don't have a deer population problem," Risley likes to say, "we have a deer distribution problem."

Where the land can handle lots of deer, Ohio bag limits encourage hunters to kill several. Yet, the take in some places isn't always sufficient.

Clark Sheets tries to raise corn and soybeans on part of 500 acres he owns in Hocking County north of Logan, an acknowledged hot spot. After a personal inspection, Risley told Sheets that recent crop damage on the land was the worst he'd seen in his 30 years in wildlife management.

Sheets, a Farm Bureau member, said his family has worked the land there for more than 100 years, but he wonders whether deer will allow him to continue.

"I'm at the point where, if something isn't done, I'm going to have to quit farming," he said.

Scores of whitetails live on and near Sheets' property despite heavy hunting. They browse young soybean tops to the point that the plants can't recover, reducing yields. Emerging corn shoots are grazed out of existence in the spring, and a portion of the surviving stalks get picked clean in the summer. "heavy hunting" :confused: "heavy harvesting" would make this argument legitimate

One county south, Fred and Lois Weaver have grown fruit trees and run a cut-your-own Christmas tree operation on 80 acres in Vinton County since 1963.

"We've always had moderate tree damage," Mr. Weaver said. "But the last six to 10 years, things have been getting worse."

Deer damage pines and spruces in several ways, he said. They eat the tops off young trees, which distorts their shape and makes them unmarketable as Christmas trees. Thus, many younger trees have to be replaced, and it takes about 10 years for an evergreen to reach Christmas-tree size.

As for the fruit bearers, deer "pick peaches and apples right off the trees," he said.

Because no study has taken place for more than a decade, the Farm Bureau doesn't have a dollar figure for crop damage, Gearhardt said. A survey a few years ago at Cornell University put the value of lost timber, crops and home plantings nationwide at $1.1 billion annually.

On the other hand, the Ohio Insurance Institute reports that the number of deer/vehicle accidents in the state decreased almost 9 percent from 2004 to 2005, the most recent statistics available.

Still, few states have more. Delaware, Franklin and Fairfield are among the counties with the most accidents. Deer collisions in 2005 cost nine human lives, 1,084 injuries and $71.1 million in damage, the institute reported.

Despite a widespread belief otherwise among hunters, auto insurers aren't pressuring the Wildlife Division to reduce the deer herd, said Mary Bonelli, the institute's senior vice president of public information. The collisions and resulting losses, she said, add up to a negligible number that "does not measure into the cost of premiums" paid by Ohio drivers. This is interesting data.

Accidents and other problems have driven some communities, including a few in Franklin County, to wrestle with what some residents perceive as too many deer.

"We've had a (hunting) program going for 15 years," said Dennis Murphy, chief of police in Gahanna.

The program involves stationing hunters with bows at off-the-trail sites in parks. Few park strollers are aware that the hunters, who undergo special training and background checks, are around in the fall and winter. But the hunters aren't taking many deer. Why not :confused:

"In 2006, we had 79 car crashes involving deer," he said, "and we had 29 deer killed by hunters this season."

Further, some of the problem deer, such as a growing number around Columbus Academy, are inaccessible to hunters for reasons of safety and public taste, Murphy said.

New Albany had 31 deer/vehicle accidents last year, one involving a police cruiser and $1,400 in damage. The village has tried since 2004 to deal with nuisance deer by enlisting bowhunters. But meager results have it considering other methods, including the use of sharpshooters, said Mark A. Chaney, the police chief.

New Albany's difficulty culling deer probably results from continuing residential development, Chaney said. Green spaces are shrinking to the point that hunters would be too close to backyards to get at herds. Deer, however, fit neatly into such spaces.

While contraceptives have been tried with limited success as a means to control confined deer populations, the efficacy of hunting as a control is unquestioned among wildlife managers.

"Man is the deer's only remaining predator," said John Watts, resource manager for the Metro Parks, which have instituted controlled hunts at two locations.

But where hunters don't or can't go, deer busily multiply. And that covers a lot of Ohio ground.

"In central and southeastern Ohio alone, landowners have something like 250,000 parcels of land that are 10 acres or less," Risley said. "If only one-quarter of them don't allow hunting, you've created a significant deer nursery." Wow...do the math...

Deer might bed on one property during the day and feed at night on the next. Unless all area landowners agree to kill deer or to allow them to be killed, the numbers will increase. The Wildlife Division offers landowners damage permits that allow year-round killing of nuisance deer, but about one-third of them are used, Risley said.

Hunters for years have complained that farmers create their own problems when they refuse to allow hunting. That criticism has some merit, the Farm Bureau's Gearhardt said. Recognition...positive sign from the FB.

"We are not blameless in this situation," he said. "We need to do something as an organization to get hunters and landowners together."
This is encouraging to hear. We archery hunters need to step up and harvest more deer to convince everyone it is a viable and workable management plan.

There are no easy answers, particularly for the Wildlife Division. It is charged with managing deer to minimize conflicts with humans but provide an economic incentive to satisfy the sportsmen who pay for operations. The sale of deer permits and hunting licenses accounted for about $19.5 million in 2006, about one-third of the division's revenues.

Deer hunters "are extremely important to us financially," Risley acknowledged. That is a vote of confidence for us deer hunters. I believe as bowhunters we can continue build our influence with the ODNR by harvesting more deer and sharing our knowledge with them. We really do need one archery hunting organization in Ohio and a united lobby in Columbus.

Knowing that, the suspicious presume that the division wants to see as many deer as the land can hold. But Risley said the division recognizes that not only competing groups but also other wildlife have differing tolerance levels for deer. Allowing the herd to expand would lead to habitat degradation, and starvation and disease among the deer.

Ohio's management plan has produced relatively fewer deer than some nearby states, but they grow larger here than in most other places in North America. The number and size of deer draw hunters from outside the state.

"Ohio is considered in the top five if not in the top three of deer-hunting states," said Rob Sexton, a lobbyist with the Columbus-based U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, a national pro-hunting group.

Hunters wonder, though, about the division's proposal, announced in February, to expand already-liberal bag-limit regulations to allow more does to be killed starting in the fall. What hunters, where? This forum has discussed this at great length...done the math...it will work out to be sound management if bowhunters step up and harvest a few more early season does.

Doe survival is considered key to managing deer numbers, and critics of the proposal questioned whether the division was caving in to Farm Bureau pressure for a smaller herd. Risley said the timing likely looked suspect to some sportsmen, coming a few months after the bureau's pronouncement. Let's hold the FB to doing something about getting their members together with hunters.

But the two weren't directly related, he said. The fear, recognized for some time, is that the deer population can grow large enough that there aren't enough hunters to control it. Such a situation would appear to benefit no one.

outdoors@dispatch.com

Rules might change
The Ohio Wildlife Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on 2007-08 hunting regulations. Among changes to be considered is an expansion of urban deer permits to allow bowhunters to kill as many as three more does outside defined urban zones. Wildlife officials estimate that the change could result in the taking of 10,000 more deer than the record 237,000 during the most recent season. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Division of Wildlife's District 1 Office, 1500 Dublin Rd. I understand the regs passed as proposed.

"I'm at the point where, if something isn't done, I'm going to have to quit farming." :(

Clark Sheets
Hocking County I feel for you Mr. Sheets. I pray you don't have to quit farming. I also pray there are more responsible hunters around that can help you manage if you give them a chance. :)

thanks for posting wallydog.

45 :coolgleamA:

[unluckyman]

Right across the field is a 30 acre woods owned by a non-farmer and nobody but him is allowed in. Across the road to the East of me is a nice 30 acre woods owned by a pretty big farmer and nobody is allowed in xcept him. To the North is a string of big wood blocks owned by a farming family and nobody but kin is allowed to hunt there. The farmers are whining about deer numbers, and still won't let anybody but a select few hunt thier land.

with all due respect I dont think i would let n/e joe blow that came to my door hunt my property. Lets face it u cant trust people, between the crack head stealing stuff and bs law suits every where whould you let just let someone go on ur 30 acres and hunt???

[coonskinner]

the big problem i see now is the greedy lil guy leasing up all the farms he can either for profit or personal growth in the quest for a record white tail...i just shake my big head everytime i go to athens and see what the greed has done...and what i am hearing from local hunters i've known my whole life...this is the big threat to getting permission to hunt...in many cases now you dont pay the farmer but another hunter who has leased the land...and how many farms must one guy have for his personal quest...myself i could prolly lock up 10 places,without paying one red cent...but i just dont think its right to do that...sad that a few guys have ruined one place i hunt...but that can happen too when you open up the borders...:mischeif:

[ohiohunter60]

Trying to get access to land is a problem for everyone. But stop and think of all the damage done by our own people, in my area alone I know of 4 farmers that have had equiptment, barns, even livestock that have been shot during gun season. I totally understand there stance, they cant afford to have these things damaged. Then you have to deal with the road hunters and (the so called hunters) that drive out through the feilds to chase the deer out. I mean come on dont just blame the farmers for not allowing us access, we can blame the self proclaimed hunters that are ruining things for us. If you owned a section of woods and strangers came and ask to hunt it would you give permission. With some of the people I have seen out in the woods I wouldn't. I would have to know you real well before I would allow it.