There is a shortage of whitetail deer
Idaho Fish and Game stated in a recent article that last year was a record kill year for whitetail deer. They also mentioned that this year will appear to be even higher.
After rejoicing over the collapse of the keystone XL pipeline and all that this means for our future, it pushes me to mention the quagmire we are now facing with whitetail deer populations.
It hasn’t been that long ago that there were literally thousands of deer in surrounding fields. With already record low deer numbers from the past few years, the deer have endured a triple punch to their survival. Last year, what few does that I noticed never even produced a fawn which is very unusual.
The triple punch came with the loss of forage for deer to eat because of the drought and the blue tongue disease break out. The third punch came with extreme loss of habitat brought on by more denuding of forests for building and clear cut logging practices.
The IFG is still propagandizing that there is an abundance of deer as they continue to ramp up either sex tag sales and extend seasons...got to keep the coffers full.
What few spring fawns were born this year….quickly became the first victims to blue tongue disease. I would find them dead by standing ponds of water and creeks. I even noticed two dead twin fawns that had been dropped off at a Dumpster. (Why they weren’t left for the birds and coyotes to eat I can not understand). These are the future generations for the whitetail.
With no buck sign to be seen anywhere this rutting season, the hunters have polished off what is left of the does and are now killing yearling fawns. But we are still being told that this fall harvest could match startling numbers bigger than last year’s harvest reports by IFG.
I would implore people to take a look around and take notice of what is happening to our deer and react accordingly. Harvest reports should not be touted as good when they are getting their numbers from the killing off of does and fawns. Harvest reports should always be more about quality and not quantity. When we are scraping the bottom...we should at least be considering the continuum of the species…..but sold tags bring in more revenue.
As a final note, I would ask people to be aware and slow down on our highways which statistically kill more of our wildlife than hunters and disease combined. It would be nice to have “nature bridges” like they do in Europe for animals to cross highways safely. Washington state has already moved in that direction. We need to bring the deer back to what they were because they are obviously in trouble.
Kevin Brown is a Benewah County resident.