Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #194: Duane Diefenbach Talks APRs, Deer-Forest Study, Monitoring Deer Movements and More

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #194: Duane Diefenbach Talks APRs, Deer-Forest Study, Monitoring Deer Movements and More · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This episode number one, and today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we're joined by Dwayne Diefenbach, a wildlife biologist and the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: leader of the penn State Dear four Study, and we're
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: discussing Antler point restrictions, how dear research is conducted, lessons
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: learned from monitoring deer movements, dear home range insights, and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: much much more. Hello, and welcome to the Wired to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear. Today in
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the show, we are going to be joined by Dwayne Diefenbach.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: He is an agjunct professor of Wildlife Ecology at penn
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: State University in the leader of the penn State Dear
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Force Study and the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. UM.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: That's that's a whole lot of things as far as titles,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: but I think in short, what it means is that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Dwayne spends an enormous amount of time studying and researching
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and monitoring and learning about white tailed deer and their
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: behavior movements. Impacts all sorts of stuff, and I think
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of stuff that that I and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Dan and I'm guessing all of you are probably gonna
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: be really interested in. So today, with the two thousand
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: seventeen hunting season kind of coming near to a close
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: for many of us, I kind of thought we can
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: take a step back from the hunting stuff and take
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a little time to get back to the basics and
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: simply talk about and learn about these critters that we
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: love so much. So that's my thoughts leading into this one.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Dan Um, what do you think about that game plan?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I like it, man, I tell you what. I I've
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: never done any type of official research before, so this
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff triggers me. I guess I really like
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to learn about numbers. Like That's what I do for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: my my real job, right, I I look at spreadsheets
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: all day. I run audits and and that kind of thing.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So when you know, in order to do proper research,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you have to do those things. So I'm I guess
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of what I'm what I'm getting at is
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of a nerd for statistics. That's good. That's good,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and it's funny you bring up what you do. We've
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: been friends for many years now, we've hosted this podcast,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: done podcast episodes together for for three or four years now.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I still don't really understand what you're doing. What what
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I imagined? Dan? Um? Have you ever seen the movie
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Off the Space? Uh? Yeah, So I imagined two things.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Either you're like one of the guys who just is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: really angry about his boss constantly telling him to put
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the cover sheet on the TPS report. You're either that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: guy or you're the guy I think his name is now,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: not Peter, I can't remember what his name is. But
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the two bobs coming in, they're interviewing, so what exactly
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: would you say you do here? And then he's like,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I've told you I'm a people person. I think that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: might be you, Dan, Yeah, it could be. It could
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: be I'm that guy. I'm the guy who just takes
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: one giant stamp and I stamped a paper and then
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I put it onto another pile, and then stamp a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: paper and then I put it onto another pile. So okay,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that helps, that makes sense, And then that that helps
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: paint to paint a clear picture for me. Now, I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: don't use a computer at all. My job oh man. So, um,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: anything we need to cover in the life of Dan
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: before we get to our main show here, Dwayne, I
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: don't you know, as far as I want to tell
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you a story, but I don't think I can that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: it's not R rated because it's about my daughter. But
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: but it just as a reminder that I have to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: watch my mouth around the kids and what I say.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I'll just tell it. I'll just tell it and you
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: can edit it out and it parts out if you want. Okay.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: So the other day at school, warned listeners, Yeah, right, right.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So the other day at school, um, or, my wife
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: gets a notification I think from the teacher says, well,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: your your daughter used foul language at to another student,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and and my wife's like, what happened? You know what happened?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And like, in a way, I'm kind of proud of
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: her because she used it the right way. But but
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: but she says, another kid started crying over something real
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: simple and petty, and she called that kid a pussy.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And then she went on to explain that if you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: cry over stuff like that, like she goes, are you hurt? No,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: then you're you know, and then you know, like if
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you're crying because of nothing. That's what you are. And
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and I I guess I. My wife's like, you have
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: got to watch your mouth around the kids, so I, uh,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I gotta. By the way, I am not gonna win
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: any awards for like best dad and never Okay, So
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is news to anyone dance. But
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: there's that one person who said they're a better father
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: because of you, So right, hold hold that close to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: your heart. Yeah. But but other than that, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: just starting to think about late season, man, I think here,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, life is just so crazy right now with
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the holiday, the holidays coming up. But hope I can
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: get some trail cameras out, go to some of my properties,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: try to find some of these food sources and uh,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you know, start that whole game. So have you assuming
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: based on what you just said that then you've not
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: been out at all in December yet? No? The uh
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the Iowa shotgun seasons just ended on Sunday. Yeah, so
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you're thinking now, as I understand it, though, you have
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: to hunt with a firearm now, right since you filled
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: your bow tag. Nope, Um, I can use a primitive
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: weapon during that muzzle late muzzloader season so I can
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: continue to use my bow during muzzleloader you know, the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: late muzzleloader season, and that goes from now until the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: end of the season. Um so, And I think there's
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a new law in Iowa, like I can use a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: crossbow now I can in this in replace of a muzzleloader,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I can use a handgun. Uh So I won't be
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: doing any of that, but uh there is an opportunity
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: for me to go out and harvest a second buck
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: if I if I find one worth shooting. Cool, that's exciting.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I hope you do. I hope you get out there. Man.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Are you done done? Now? Are you done? Oh? No, no,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: unfortunately not. I will tell you what though, I'm just
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: kinda I am worn down, like I am ready for
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I'm ready for this season to be done. I think
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I just I just need kind of a fresh start.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I think, Um you know, since we last chatted, I
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: think I had told you, well maybe we didn't talk
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: about it at all, and we talked all about my
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: late season hunts for Holyfield. Well after the last the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: last time I talked with you, or I think even
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: on this podcast, we chatted about going down to Ohio
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and the last thing we knew you saw a buck
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: potentially worth shooting, but you were going to make a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: move that night. No, we talked. We talked since then
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: because I talked about you about how the next day
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I moved and then he showed up. I got there late. Remember, Um,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Remember I forgot all my hunting clothes at my hotel. Okay,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So I got into the stop spot late. And when
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I got to the spot I wanted to hunt, there
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: was already doze feeding there, so I couldn't hunt there.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But the big bucks stepped out right where I wanted
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to be. The next day, and the next day I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: got to the spot I wanted to be in, the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: big buck came out where it was the night before. Um.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So that was the end of that Ohio trip. Okay,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So now you're back in Michigan, right, So yes. Then
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I got back to Michigan and a cold front was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: hitting a couple of days later. So my game plan
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: had been to stay out on the Michigan Main Michigan
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: property where Holy Field is until that cold front hit.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So the front hit and I started hunting. I started
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: bouncing around. Um and over the course of I don't know,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think that front hit on the fifth of December,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: maybe something like that. And between the fifth of December
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and the December I think I hunted maybe six times.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Um when there was good missions, Goodwin direction, all that
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um. And you know the long story
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: short on that is, I never saw holy Field. I
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: never saw any bucks at all. Um. Got into some
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: good spots, had good weather, etcetera, etcetera, but just nothing
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: but doze. So that was disappointing. So last year holy
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Field did kind of the same thing, right, He made
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: it through gun season, showed up one or two more times,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: but then went away for a while. Or was he
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: consistent all at late season? Last year? He was pretty
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: consistent last December. Um, I only saw him. Well, I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: saw him a few times in person in December, including
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that time I had him, you know, in front of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: me at sixty five yards um. But he was on
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: trail camera ton Um. He was all over the cameras
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: last year during the month of December. I have not
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: gotten a single trail camera picture of him yet this
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: month or in November. I don't have a single picture
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: of him since October. Holy Field. Wait, I thought he
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: made it through the gun season. Oh he did. I've
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: seen him. People have seen it trail camera pictures. Yeah. So,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: so I saw him, you know, twelve times in November
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: and then UM got a sighting of him the day
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: after gun season. UM, so you know, visually was confirming
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: he was alive. But no pictures at all. He hasn't
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: been on the trail cameras at all, which is weird. Um.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But uh but yeah, so I hunted you know during
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: this time period, haven't seen him, no pictures. Um. So
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: then I said, all right, time to I'm not gonna
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: keep beating my head against a wall if he's not
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: moving daylight or anything. So then last weekend I went
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to Ohio and hunted in Ohio Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Um.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I thought I'd tried to catch they had a little
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: two day guns season going on, and no luck there either. Um.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I saw some deer um one night, I think it
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: was Saturday night in particular. I thought I felt pretty
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: good about it. Um got set up in the spot
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: near where I had seen this big buck um the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: trip before, and UM just started seeing all sorts of deer,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: more dear than I ever see on this property. UM
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: ended up seeing maybe seven or eight does and I
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: think six different bucks, um, and these does all came
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: piling off these ridges and they all came by within
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: shooting range on me. And these bucks were chasing does.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: They're they're bumping does around that. I think there was
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a young faun that maybe was coming into estrus. Finally,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: you know that kind of second rut you get these
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: late maturity funds. Um. Because it was nuts, like, I
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: haven't seen anything like that on this property in a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: long time. UM. The issue was that these bucks were
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: all young bucks, two year olds and year and a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: half olds, um. But it got me excited. I was like, man,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: if there's you know, a fall here and all these
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: bucks are kyrageting one air, A couple of bucks were fighting, um,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: all this stuff going on, I was like, man, maybe
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: maybe this would be the time the Big Boys shows.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: But he didn't. UM. I guess the only good news
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that there were pictures. There was a good amount of
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: trout camera activity recently with three different mature bucks still
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: in the area, UM, somewhat consistently. You know, all shown
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: up a few times a week. UM. So there's bucks there,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: but they were not moving in daylight when I was there.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So three days there no luck. Came back home and uh,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I just pulled trail cameras. Again. I haven't checked pictures
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in like ten days or two weeks or something like that,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and again nothing on camera. Um, just a few pictures
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of that one three year old I was calling survivor
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: um and some year and a half old. And that's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: basically it. So I think things are kind of I
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: think things are kind of coming to a close here
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the two thousand seventeen season. Um, pretty soon here, in
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a few days, I probably gotta switch over to shooting
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: some doughs because I just have to kill some doughs
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: out here. That was gonna be My question is when
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: when do you give up and then and on Holy
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Field and then go out and just try to fill
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the freezer. Yeah, I think I'm I'm a few days
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: away from doing that. Um. So pretty soon here it's
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: gonna be time to just get that done. Um and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: then uh, you know, move on to two thousand eighteen
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and whatever that might hold. So, man, it's crazy how
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: different our seasons have been when you think about it,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: because you're getting to the point where you say, man,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you're worn down because you've been hunting so hard you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: throughout almost the entire from September all the way until now.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And I'm I'm to the point where, Man, I cannot
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: wait to get out and sit a late season hunt,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: even if it means forty degrees in December, you know
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like I I feel like my season
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was over too soon, very very different seasons. I think
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you hunted ten days and saw like six bucks over
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one fifty and I hunted. I hunted like a hundred
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: fifty days and saw six x over ten inches something
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, it's been a it's been a season, man,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you that. But next episode, I think we do.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I want to do like a two thousand and seventeen analysis,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: like review the season, go through in detail. Pretty soon.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I want to sit down, like think through all the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: things that I thought coming into the season, all the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: things I've learned after the season, all the mistakes I made. Um,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I want to do like a really comprehensive review for
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: myself and then and I thought maybe that'd be helpful
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to share that here, So keep that, keep that in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: mind for yourself, Dan for our next one. Um, so
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: we can both do that perfect. But I guess it
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: is now time for us to wrap this up because
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's time to get Dwayne on the phone. So
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break here for our sick coust
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: story and then we'll call Dwayne for this week's sick
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of story. We're joined by photographer Caleb Boyd who tells
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: us about a hunt of a life time that never
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: ended with the harvest. So I've been fortunate enough to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: travel and photograph around the world on commercial and documentary hunts,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and one of my most memorable hunting experiences was capturing
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a hunt for a U. S. Marshal that was retired
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and it was on a brown bear hunt out of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: good News Bay, Alaska. This ten day hunt turned into
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a fourteen day crazy rain, freezing, snowing, um out of
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: tents and glassing for ten to twelve hours a day,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and it was unbelievable weather where we saw wolves, wolverine, bears, moose,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: you name it. And it was on the frozen tundra.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So each night was windy and raining and it was
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it was a long time, So fourteen days out in
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the field, and it was one of the coolest experiences
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of my life being able to see all these animals
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and yet not take an animal, and so even though
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the hunt was unsuccessful, the experience was an adventure of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a lifetime. On Caleb's hunt, he was wearing Sitka's Mountain
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: pants and jet Stream vests. If you'd like to create
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a stick of story of your own, or to learn
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit sitka gear dot com.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Alright with us now on the show is Dwayne Diefenbach.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Dwayne. Oh, thank you, glad to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: be here. Yeah, and uh I was. I was mentioning
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to Dan Um earlier that I've been following your work
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: through the Dear Forest Study over on your blog for
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a handful of years now, Um, and I've just been
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: pretty fascinated with the things you've been sharing, the little
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: updates in regards to what you're doing and how you're doing,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and different different insights you've pulled from that study. So
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: so for a while I've wanted to try to have
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: you on the show. I'm excited that we can finally
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: do this, So so first off, thank you, and secondly, Um,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: for those though that maybe aren't familiar with who you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: are and the work you're doing, can you just kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of give us a quick overview of of what it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: is you do and how you got to this point. Sure, UM, so,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I I'm the leader of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Research Unit, which is located at penn State University.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I'm actually an employee of the U S Geological Survey UM,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: but because I'm stationed at Penn State UM, I'm also
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: on the adjunct faculty, so it gives me a unique
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: position where UM I do research. UM I also do
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit of teaching. I mentor graduate students, and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: one of the more important parts of my job job
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is to work collaboratively with our state UH natural resource
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: agencies and so UM. For the past seventeen years, I've
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: been doing deer research with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a few years ago UM I actually also started a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: joint project with both the Game Commission and our Pennsylvania
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Bureau of Forestry. So the Bureau Forestry manages about two
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: million acres in Pennsylvania. UM and both agencies, of course
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: UM have a vested interest in managing deer um the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: best they can, and so both agencies are working with
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: me now on on our current deer research so so
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: why did you want to get involved the dear, dear
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: research at the beginning? You know, seventeen years ago, when
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you start with this focus area, I have to laugh
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because most of my career I've avoided deer. UM. I've
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: done work on waterfowl and UH. I reintroduced bobcats to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: an island and have done various research projects and and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: quite frankly, I never was that excited about having to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: do research with deer. But of course when I started
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: in this position, UM, deer are very important to the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Game Commission, and right around two thousand, UM they decided
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that they wanted to do some research because for years
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: they really hadn't done any research on deer, and UM
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: they were thinking about implementing some major changes. UM. They
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: ended up implementing Antler point restrictions in Pennsylvania, UM to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: create an older age structure in the buck population. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: so along with that, they knew that they needed to
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: do research. And so UM that's where I came in.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And I guess I haven't looked back. It's actually, despite
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: my trepidation, UM, it's actually been very rewarding because the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Game Commission has provided a lot of resources towards
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the dear research. So we've been able to do some
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: really interesting work and address just some basic questions about
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: why dear disperse and how they disperse, and and and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: things like that. So it's it's actually been a fun ride,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I imagine. So so, speaking of those early issues there,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know how there's a lot of work
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: being done around the Antler point restrictions when those were introduced. Um,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: did you get involved in analyzing, you know, the health
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of the herd or anything along those lines before and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: after those were introduced. Yeah, that was a big project
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: from two thousand two to two thousand and five. We
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: actually we radio colored over five deer um and because
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: we wanted to look at what harvest rates were before
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Antler point restrictions were implemented, we wanted to know what
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: harvest rates were afterwards. And we wanted to know whether
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: um deer that weren't harvested the first year because their
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: racks were too small, whether they survived and were actually
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: available to be harvested in the second year. So, you know,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: those are questions that people didn't really know the answer to,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and um, we said, well, if we're going to make
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: these changes, we need to know what actually happens. So
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: we looked at the biological side of things. UM. At
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the same time, probably more importantly, we wanted to know
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: what hunters thought about Antler Point restrictions before they were implemented,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: during and after. And so it was a complete evaluation
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: of both the social side of of what we call
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a p RS or Antler Point restrictions as well as
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the biological effects. So, of course now I need to
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: ask in particular because the whole issue of a PRS
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: have been a hot topic in my home state of Michigan. UM.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: We've instituted a p RS in one corner of the state. UM,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and then it's been a it's been a hotly contested
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: debate over the last year or so a couple of
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: years about whether that should be institute across the rest
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of the state. UM. Do you recall what do you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: guys end up finding out as far as the social
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and biological answers to those questions you just post work. Well,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is, from a biological standpoint, Antler point
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: restrictions work. UM. In Pennsylvania, we found that hunters were,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you know, obeyed the law. UM. They UM, there was
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you know some um, there was very little illegal killing
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of deer. There was a little bit of mistaken kill
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: um um. But for the most part, UM we increased
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the number of older aged bucks by like so UM.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: It was a success from the standpoint of creating an
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: older age structure of bucks. UM. From the from the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: social side, it was pretty interesting. What we found was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that hunters that supported well, I would say basically, hunters
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: made up their mind before we implemented Antler point restrictions.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Either they said they were going to work beforehand and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: supported them, or they didn't, and after Antler point restrictions
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: it really did change their mind. H And how has
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that study continued on today? I mean, are people still
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: tracking the social um side of that at all? Because
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear you now that's been a significant
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: number of years since if viewpoints have changed at all?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Do you know that? Um? Well, the Game Commission are
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: our research has concluded, But the Game Commission does do
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: UM surveys from time to time every couple of years.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And I think that what we found in our study
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: is that before Antler point restrictions were implemented, about six
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: hunters supported them, and by the time we got done it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It was basically the same, and I think that pretty
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: much holds true today. Interesting, it sounds like from the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: things I've heard, it was quite a contentious issue there
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for you guys as well. UM, I heard it got
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit, oh a little feisty at some of
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: these different town hall meetings and little heated As far
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: as the road show that I know that, I think
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it was Gary Alt who who was at the time,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I think was kind of trying to communicate with the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: hunting population about why this is a good idea, and UM,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it sounded like that was quite an interesting time to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: be in Pennsylvania. Well, the critical component this and Gary
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Alt went all over the state for a couple of years,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: meeting with holding you know, tens, if not hundreds of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: public meetings, and eventually meeting literally with tens of thousands
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of sportsmen in Pennsylvania. UM. And what he generally found
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is overwhelming support of the people who attended those meetings.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And UM, but I think that education. UM. Other people,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: not just us, have pointed out that if you're going
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to make changes like this, you really need to do
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: your homework up front and inform hunters of what the
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: changes are going to be, what the expectation is, what
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: they can expect to see um and that's really important
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to making sure it's a success. And I think that
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: has a lot to do with why it was successful
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania and that the majority of hunters supported it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: before they were implemented. I got a quick question in
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: regards to like the logistics of this research and how
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: it was implemented. What like, how how long did this
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: research take? How how did you go about collecting all
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that data? Well, we did surveys before and after every
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: hunting season, so in two thousand and two UM, which
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was basically um uh sort of a pre treatment, right,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: because you had all these bucks out there and then
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: suddenly many of them were not going to be legal
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to harvest, and there weren't that many older aged bucks.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Only about of our population was two and a half
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: years or older. On the odds of having a four
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and a half year old buck in the population were
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: probably on the order of one to two UM. So
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: what we did was in the winter before a p
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: r S were implemented, we caught as many deer as
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: we could um mail deer and put radio collars on
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: them so that we could monitor their harvest rates and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: survival rates. Um. And then as I mentioned, right before
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: that first hunting season, we sent out a survey to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: a random sample of hunters, and then we did another
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: survey right after the end. And then of course the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: next winter we captured and radio collared more dear and
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: we did that for three years. So you captured and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: collared five deer, right, I forget the actual numbers, but
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: it was between five and six hundred deer I believe.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: So so how did that happen? I mean, was that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it throughout different parts of the state or was that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in one general area? Was it like, did it take
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: one weekend or two areas one? Because Pennsylvania, we the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a p rs are divided into a three point area
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: in a four point area because there Western Pennsylvania has
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: better habitat and a lot more yearlings um will have
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: uh four you know, will be eight points in their
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: first year, or a lot of them will be six
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: points and some will even be eight points. Um. So
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: so in the Western PA they had to have four
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: points on a side. So we had one study area
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: out in western part of the state, and then we
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: had another study area in the central part of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: state where we had a three point rule. Um, so
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: we had to study areas had cruise capturing deer in
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: both areas for three years. Okay, so that was over.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It was five over a three year period. Yes, okay, okay,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I got you. And I don't know if you even
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: have the information or can answer this, But how much
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: did this undertaking cost? Uh? Well, let's see, that's already
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: about ten years ago. But I would say, um, over
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the three years, pool boy, well over a million dollars.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Quentin Endeavor, I would imagine absolutely. Her research is not cheap.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It's very We figure it concess about a thousand dollars
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: for every deer that we capture. Wow, can you not
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the wrong this topic? Um? Can you outline for us
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: actually how you go about a deer capture, whether be
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: for a study like you did back in two, two, three,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: four and five, or you know, eventually I want to
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: move into the current research being done. I'm kind of
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: curious to hear about actually how you're getting your hands
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: on these deer and putting collars or whatever it might
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: be on them. How does that actually happen for you guys? Well,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: we've tried lots of different things. We've used helicopters, UM,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: dart guns. We have clover traps, which are basically just
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a walk in trap. UM. We've used rocket nets where
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: rockets fire a net over bait UM. And we also
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: use drop nets, which are even larger nets that are
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: set up with a trigger that the deer walk under
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the net net drops down on them. What we've found
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: is that UM helicopters are not effective. UM. Well, they
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: can be, but there they're really not practical in the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Eastern US with our forests um UH dart guns are
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: really time consuming and we've given up on trying to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: dart free ranging deer UM. So basically we're we in
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: our current research project on the Deer forest study, we
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: just use rocket nets and clover traps. UM. If we're
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: in an area that has a lot more open areas
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and and higher densities of deer, we might use drop
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: nets because we can catch a lot of deer at
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: one time, But for the most part, we just use
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the clover traps and rocket nets. So you get a
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: deer netted and then so there's a deer on the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: ground with a net around it. I gotta imagine that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: deer is struggling. Um, what happens next? Imagine someone runs
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: up to it, grabs it, tries to cover its head
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: or something. Can you walk me through that? Sure? If
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we catch deer with the rocket net, usually we're catching
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: two or three deer, but we might catch five, six, seven, eight, um.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So those deer tangled up in the net, um, we
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: have a crew that will restrain them, and we also
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: sedate them because you know, if we catch three or
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: four deer, it's going to take Even if they were sedated,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: it might take ten twenty minutes to get them untangled
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: from the net. So we have to sedate the deer.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: We always blindfold deer when we handle them because with
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: them not being able to see, that reduces some of
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the stimulation and their calmer UM. And so will sedate them,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: untangle them out of the net. At that point, we
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: can you know, tag them, caller them if we have
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: to collect any sand upples, will do that at that time, um,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: and then then we can give them a reversal drug
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: for the sedative, and we have to basically monitor to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: them until they're able to get up and move on
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: their own. If we capture a deer in a clover
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: trap UM. We generally don't like to sedate them because
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: if we have a well trained crew, they can go
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: in um restrain the deer, fit the caller, and and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: ear tag it and collect whatever data we need to
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: collect in in about three to five minutes. So there's
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: really no need to sedate them because the stresses UM
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: very very short term. And uh and if you don't
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: have to sedate and animal, it's it's a lot better
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: because less things to go wrong. Yeah, so you're leading,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you know these studies. Now, do you still get to
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: do any few would work like that today? Or do
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: you have grad students or or or crew as you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: mentioned doing all that stuff? Now? I only go out
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: if it's nice weather. Smart man, I ask because I'm wondering,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: you know, is like that is this kind of thing?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Is this the really fun part when you're in the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: field hands on, actually like up close to these animals.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Is that what you love about it? Or is your
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: passion more so in just understanding from far out and
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: analyzing and seeing the big picture. Oh, I guess I'm
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a different wildlife biologist in that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I really like the data UM to see the patterns
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: so there's different rewards. I mean obviously, um, capturing deers
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I I call it capture and release hunting, right because
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: you're you're trying to outsmart these animals, get them to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: walk into your trap or or in front of the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: rocket net and capture the them. So you have to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: figure out what their patterns are, what they're doing, um,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: how can you get them to you know, come into
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the bait um and then of course handling the animal.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it's always exciting, I mean who gets to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: hold a live white tailed deer? Um. But but the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: more rewarding aspect, at least for me, is uh is
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: when you when you get all these data. Um, when
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: all the data are collected and you can analyze it,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: then you can start to see patterns, and then then
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you get to understand, um, things that you otherwise wouldn't
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: know just from watching a deer or handling a deer. UM.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: When you have you know, five deer data from five
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: deer over three years, then you can really get to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: understand about what's going on with these animals. Before we
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: get into this is going to lead, Mark's got some
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: more questions for you about the the studies and what
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the findings were. But I have a real quick question
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: about what happens when a hunter shoots or kills one
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of these tagged animals. What happens next? Do they have
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: specific instructions that they are supposed to follow, how does
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that get educated out to them? And whatnot? Well, Um,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: every deer it's ear tagged and the radio collar has
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: UM has wording on there with a toll free number,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and it also indicates that there's a hundred dollar reward
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: if they report the recovery of that caller. I mean,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: you know, it could be someone just walking in the woods,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: could be a road killed deer. Um. Most of them
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: are you know, most mortality is hunter harvest. So most
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of the time it's a hunter who harvested the deer
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and it's reporting it to us. So they just call
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: a toll free number. Um, we uh, you know, get
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the information from them, and uh and if we need
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to recover the caller. Interesting And Dan, you were you
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: were spot on you know me, Well, now you know
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: where I'm trying to go with things. Um, because yes,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: that was where I wanted to direct things next. Um, Dwayne,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: because as you mentioned, you really enjoy the patterns and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: understanding the high level data that kind of illuminates bigger
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: picture behaviors. UM. And from what I've seen following from
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a distance, this recent work you've been doing with the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Deer Forest Study has given you an opportunity to see
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: some of those things that I think US hunters might
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: be particularly interested in as well. So can you can
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you fill us in real quick on what this current
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: project as you've been working on this dear force study?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: What is it? What have you been looking looking at?
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Where are the goal has been so far? Um? And
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: then from there I've got some questions about some of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the things you've learned. Sure, so the Deer Forest Study
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: really should be called the Forest Deer Study, But here
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: are more charismatic and it rolls off the tongue better
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: if you call it the Dear Forest Study. UM. And
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: really um. In Pennsylvania, we've been doing a series of projects. UM.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: What we do, what I do is in working with
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the game commission, as we sit down and say, okay,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: we have to make a decision here about managing dear
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: What is it that we don't know that we would
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: really what's the most important thing that we don't know
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that we'd like to know, and that's how we focused
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: our research. So we've looked at you know, the effects
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: of a p RS. After that, we moved on to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: female survival and harvest rates and how that relates to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: how we model populations and UM. And we've answered other
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: things along the way about dispersal and all sorts of stuff.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: But right now we're at the point where UM, you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the game commission is making decisions and in their decision
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: model UM, the biolo just need to make recommendations to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the board of Commissioners who make the decisions about what
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to do. And we have a sort of a decision
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: model that the biologists walt work through and they're looking
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: at deer population trends and habitat conditions UM, as well
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: as what UM, what hunters or society desires. Those are
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the three things that go into it. And what we've
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: what's happened is we know a lot about deer in Pennsylvania.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Now now we we have a pretty good handle on
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: how we model numbers and look at trends and populations,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: survival and harvest rates UM. What we don't have a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: good handle on is is the forest conditions and how
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: those conditions are being affected by deer browsing. We know
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: there's been lots and lots of research that deer can
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: have a tremendous effect on the environment. UM. They have
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: preferred species of plants that they prefer to eat, you know,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: just like you and I would prefer ice cream over
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Brussels sprouts. You know, they prefer trillium and Indian cucumber
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: over um, you know, something as untasty as mountain laurel
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: or rhododendron. So they can you know, if you have
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer on the landscape, they can have
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a real impact. And and so we know they can
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: have an impact. But the question is, UM, what are
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the desired habitat conditions and what is it that we
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: need to monitor to say, Okay, deer are not really
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: having an impact. We're happy with the forest conditions as
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: they are. And so that's the focus of this research.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: We've got four study areas UM. Each study areas about
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: oh anywhere from twenty five to forty square miles. And
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: what our goal is is too in each of these areas,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: UM either stabilize or change dear populations and at the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: same time monitor vegetation and see UM and hopefully learn
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. A what things about the habitat
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: on the vegetation should we be measuring um? How does
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the habitat respond to changes in dear density UM? And
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: also how do hunters respond to the actions that we're
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: taking Because we're using hunters as a management tool to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: manipulate deer numbers UM, and so they're a very important tool,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: a crucial tool to the game commission. So we also
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: want to better understand how hunters hunt on these areas.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: So so this is a rather rudimentary question, but can
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: you explain for us why this kind of leg of
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the stool matters? You mentioned, you know, hunters and deer
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and then habitat. Why does understanding the proper habitat health matter?
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Why do we want to make sure that deer in
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: habitat are in balance um. I think this is something
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people understand, but maybe some people
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: might say, well, I think I think it might be
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: fair to say that a lot of guys UM, A
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: lot of hunters just want more dear, right, if more
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: dear means better hunting? I think at some level, if
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: you at a very simple level, you might assume more
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: dear means better hunting. Um, why might that be wrong?
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And why do you think having the proper balance matters? Well,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: first of all, let me a couple of things before
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I dive into that. First of all, UM, you know this,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: all of this is driven by human society's values. Hunters
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: obviously are a big part of this, but um, deer
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: are a public resource and so the state agencies have
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: to be responsible to not just hunters. Um. Of course
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: hunters are a big part of it, but they also
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: have to look at um that all stakeholders and all
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: people that are influenced by deer, whether it's because of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: a vehicle collision or damage to their um landscaping or
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: industrial timber companies who are having problems with regenerating forest. Um. Society,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the Game Commission has developed a deer management plan, working
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: with Society to set some objectives, goals and objectives for
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: managing deer. And so based on those objectives, they're trying
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: to make the best decision possible. And I would say,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: from a hunting perspective, why would you not want to
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: just maximize deer? Well, mm hmm, um. Probably for the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: main reason is that you're not going to have the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: deer that you want. Um, if you don't take into
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: account habitat, I mean a farmer doesn't just say, well,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I've got twenty acres and I want to raise a
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty cattle on those twenty acres. You can't
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: do it. Um. He's gonna he might be able to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: keep a hundred cows alive on twenty acres, but it's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: going to be a mud pit and he's gonna have
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: to bring in a lot of hay. And he could
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: do it. And the same thing goes with deer. We
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: could have a lot more deer in Pennsylvania, but is
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: it the deer that you want? Um? And uh. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: so having a trying to have some sort of balance
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: between habitat quality and deer numbers. UM. If you can
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: seek balance, you're going to maximize potentially the size of deer,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the reproductive rates of deer, um, and generally have a
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: healthy deer population, which you know, I would think would
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: be lead to you know, happier hunters in terms of
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: more higher quality hunting experience. Yeah, yeah, I certainly agree
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: with that. UM. And now I'm kind of rewinding the
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: clock a little bit. But in some of your earlier work.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that some of your research, some of your
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: projects have related to some of these things as far
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: as modeling populations. UM, is that something you could speak to,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: which is how do how does the Game Fish Commission
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and or researchers they work with determine that balance or
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: how what are you guys looking at to help figure
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: out what that proper balance point is? Um? Is that
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: something you've got some experience with? Well? UM, I think
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: this current project is trying to get a better idea
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of what that balances between habitat and deer numbers. UM.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: In you know, in you know, back up a second,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: quite frankly, UM, deer management North America. That travesty is
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: is that any wildlife management is traditionally been called a
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: three legged stool. As you mentioned earlier, there's the species
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: you're managing, there's the habitat that species depend on, and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: there's people. If you look at deer management in UH
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in North America, for the most part, they they address
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the concerns of people, and they address deer numbers, but
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: they don't address habitat. In fact, Pennsylvania is the only
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: state in in the northeastern US that explicitly has some
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: goals and objectives relating to habitat conditions um, and so um,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you know, and we've only recently implemented that. I mean
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: we've been um, well we've had to have had some
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: goals and excuse me in the past. But but Pennsylvania's,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you know, is a rare situation and that we're trying
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: to explicitly incorporate habitat conditions in while making deer management decisions. So. UM,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: so just getting deer counts and estimates of deer numbers
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: and trends is not so difficult. There's some different methods
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: out there just based on you know, using hunter harvest data. Um.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: That it's I mean, it's expensive. I mean the agency
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: puts a lot of personnel, time and effort into collecting
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: those data. But it can be done. Um. The hard
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: part is figuring out that balance. And that's where this
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: project is coming in. So I really, I really see
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: it as UM, this current project is being cutting edge
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: um potentially being well not just potentially, but being will
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: be very informative for the Game Commission, who has to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: make manage management decisions statewide, as well as the Bureau
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of Forestry that has to make decisions on the two
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: million acres that they're responsible for. So, so, have you
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: to this point yet been able to UM achieve any
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: of the goals that you have kind of laid out
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: for this study yet or have there been any UM
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: takeaways yet that are actionable or is that still some
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: time to come. Well, you know, when we started this,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: we knew that this was going to be have to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: be a long term project. And that's because, um, dear
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: easy there there's more dear born every year. Um. You know,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: a buck. Average age of a buck is um, it's
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: still a year and a half old. Most of the
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: books are year and a half old. But you have
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a high turnover and so you can learn a lot
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: in just a few years monitoring deer vegetation. Right, the
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: if you're going to grow a stand of oak um,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: that's going to take at least eighty years. So so
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a completely different time frame or perspective
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: than what biologists usually think about. Now, foresters think about
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: eighty year time frames, but biologists are usually thinking about two, three,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: four or five years. Well, now, in two, three, or
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: four or five years, you might have an oak seedling
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: go from six inches to three ft tall UM, and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: so to be able to monitor vegetation change is going
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to take what and we've already found this out at
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: least five years and probably ten years before we start
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: to get a good handle on on the vegetation response
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: to the changes we make in deer numbers. How fragile
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: is that balancing act as far as uh population versus
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: habitat um, I don't think it's too fragile. I mean,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: we've been trying to manage or mismanaged deer for over
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: a hundred years, UM, and we still have forests. It's
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: just is it the forest that you want? Um. We
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: have lots of places in Pennsylvania that you know back
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, UM, we had very high deer densities,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: and so basically black cherry was very successful at growing,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: but not so much sugar maple or or other species. So, UM,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the forest will survive, but there will be some effects
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and deer populations aren't going to crash because as of
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: these things. UM. I think what we are is the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: wildlife profession is maturing, and we're at a point where
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of the basic tools. Now we're
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: trying to learn how to fine tune those and put
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: a sharper point on those tools and then getting a
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: little bit more specific who makes those decisions on how
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: this this habitat should be and what is considered a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: good habitat. Yeah, so that's a difficult thing. UM. What
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the Game Commission has done is looked at um UH
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: data that the U. S. Forest Service collects as part
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: of the National Program, and UM and forest ecologists have
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: identified UM some certain minimum level of tree reach generation
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: what we call it advanced regeneration. So if you have
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a forest out there, there's big trees obviously, like oaks
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: that are dropping acorns, and those acorns do lead to
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: seedlings that pop up in the understory, and that's called
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: advanced regeneration because if you go in and cut down
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: those large oaks, those small seedlings that are on the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: ground or we're going to pop up and replace those
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: large trees that you removed. So there are some UM standards,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: depending on the forest type and the habitat of UM
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: sort of some minimum conditions that you'd want to see
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: UM in terms of advance regeneration of seedlings. And so
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: that's what the Game Commission is using right now. UM. However,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: there's more than just trees out in the forest and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: um and and agencies like the Bureau of Forestry are
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: not just responsible for tree is but their their mandate
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: is to look at the plant community as a whole.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: And so there's lots of understory species um uh, like
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: trillium and indian cucumber and vibe um uh uh, some
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: hobble bush, which is a viburnum. In fact, hobble bush
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: is extremely rare in Pennsylvania because it's highly preferred by deer,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and with the high deer densities that we've had in
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the past, it's disappeared in a lot of places um so. So,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: but those those other things, like those understory plants, we
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: really don't know a lot. We people have done research
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and they say, yeah, dear love trillium, dear love indian cucumber, um.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: But what we don't know is what percent of the
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: landscape out there should have indian cucumber, how common should
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: it be? And so we don't even have any idea
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: what that should be. And that's part of what we're
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: trying to address with this research is get some insights
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: into um what level of UM deer numbers would lead
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: to UM. You know a plant diversity of plants in
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the understory community that would be acceptable to society. All right,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: let's pause here for a moment to thank our partners
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: at White Tailed Properties. This week with white Tail Properties,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: we are joined by Dave Skinner ad Land Specialists out
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: of Kentucky, and Davey is going to be telling us
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: about what to look for when buying a property with
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: intentions of early season white tail hunting. Yeah, in Kentucky
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: at season comes in in September, and if you're looking
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: specifically for that early season hunt, some things keep them
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: on one just like late season food sources are keen um.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: And there's two food sources in Kentucky that trump everything
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: else in September, soy beans and acorns. Um. If I'm
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: looking to han specifically that early season, I want to
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: make certain I either have solwy things on the property
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: or Jason to the property. More than anything, though eight
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: onns are always number one. I want to know that
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: there's white oak treats on the property. Um becose one.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Those eight mores are following. That's where the deal will be.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more and to see the
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: properties that Dave currently has listed for sale visit white
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: tail properties dot com backslash skinner that's s k I
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: N N E er. So a lot of the a
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: lot of the big picture take away from the study
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: could be years out. It sounds like this is a
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: long term thing, UM, But I do know from the
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: things I've read on your website and different presentations that
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I've seen online, UM, that that you guys are learning
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: plenty in the interim as far as dear behavior, just
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: given the the interesting insights you guys are able to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: gain by the fact simply that you have you know,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: uh collared and are tracking so many different deer. Right,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: what what are some of the most interesting things that
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: you guys have learned so far on that front? Yes, so, UM.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: So we call her dear UM in this study because
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: we do need to keep track of numbers and get
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: an idea of how many deer out there, what the
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: harvest rates are, UM and UM. And we've been using
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: these GPS satellite callers because they're really they're expensive, but
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: they're also very cost effective because UM, instead of having
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a truck and multiple multiple trucks and technicians running around
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the woods with antenna's trying to track dear UM. With
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: these satellite GPS callers, I can sit at my desk
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: and get hundreds of times more data than I ever
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: could with an army of field technique scions. So so
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: those callers have just been sort of a side benefit
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: of this project UM that have provided a lot of
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: insights into how dear move UM in different times of
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the year UM, in particular how they respond to hunting UM,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: which is interesting for us because, like I said, part
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: of this study is to learn about how hunters hunt UM,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: what the harvest rates are that we see on these
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: study areas. In particular, if we're trying to manage or
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: manipulate deer numbers, UM, you need to do that through
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Antler West harvest. So how these deer respond to hunting
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: is for me has been the most fascinating part of
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: this project. Yeah, so so tell us about that. What
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: have you seen as far as a year in a
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: life of a deer maybe maybe buck if you've got
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: a box in particular, UM, and then how does hunting
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: pressure impact that. I've sure I've seen some interesting things
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you guys have posted as far as you know, actually
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: looking at one specific buck and learning about a specific
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: bucks travel patterns throughout the year, and that was pretty
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: fascinated by that. Yeah, Actually, if you indulge me for
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: a second, back up a little bit about ten years ago,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: So I had a student who, um, we didn't have
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: satellite callers at that time, but we were interested in
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: in deer harvest rates and how where a deer lived
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: on the landscape, how that might influence its probability of
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: being harvested. And so what he did was he captured
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer radio collared them, and then we
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: also did some aerial surveys and we're able to map
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: hunter density across his study area where he had all
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: these collar deer, and we found real differences in in
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: how hunters were distributed across the landscape. And actually, um,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: what was really interesting is what he found as there
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: was sort of this sweet spot that if you you
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: were most deer was most likely to be harvested if
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it was oh about a third of a mile from
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a road. Um, if if you were real close, if
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: a deer was real close to the road, you know,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: its home range was real close to the road, Um,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: it would have you have a very high probability of
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: being harvested. And then as you got further away from
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: that road, that probability being harvested would decline. But if
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: you looked at like hunters success, the sweet spot wasn't
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: right next to the road because that's where all the
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: hunters were. The sweet spot was a little bit further
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: away from the road where there weren't quite as many hunters, um.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: But you still had enough hunters that you were moving
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: deer around, and those deer ended up getting hard harvested anyway.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: So that was really intriguing. Um. But it was kind
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: of a black box type of thing because we knew
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: where deer were sort of on the landscape, and we
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: knew where hunters were, but we didn't have any real
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: time data. Right. All we could say is, yeah, this
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: is where this deer spent its time and it got harvested.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: And this is where this deer spent most of its
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: time and it didn't get harvested. Well, now, what we
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: can do with these satellite callers is actually watch these
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: deer move in real time. And in Pennsylvania we have
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind we've got like three quarters of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: a million deer hunters um. Uh. Most of those are
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: out during our twelve day rifle season. So there's intensive
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure. And so how do those deer respond, especially
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: on public lands because there's lots of con entional wisdom
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: out there. Oh, they run off the public land and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: they spend all their time on private land, or you know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: they go nocternal and they don't move during the day. UM.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: So what actually happens and what we found is that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: that that conventional wisdom isn't all correct at what it's
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: correcked up to be UM. And and insights that sort
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of explained what we saw with that earlier study. And
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: so these dear um respond very much to the hunting pressure. UM.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: They respond. Before the dear season opens, UM, I give
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of talks and show show hunters movies, UM.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: And I asked them, so, what happens on Saturday and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Sunday because we always have a Monday opener for dear
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: season And they said, well, Um, Saturday and Sunday, everyone's
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: going out to their dear stand and I said, yeah, exactly,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: and and that just triggers the behavior and the deer
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: and they know something's up. And so UM, come Monday
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: morning by two to four o'clock in the morning, though
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of those deer in a hiding spot that
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: they've discovered, and they just sit tight until the middle
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: of the day and then they might start moving in
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the afternoon. Um, but they respond to that hunting pressure. Um,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: that's really really interesting. And then there's lots of different aspects.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: But I'm rambling on here and I you must have
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: another question. Yeah, so so let's talk about this, um,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: this immediate reaction to you know, opening day hunting pressure.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that some of them go into a hiding
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: spot of some sort. Can you elaborate on specifically what
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: you found? Um? Were these dear you know, you mentioned
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: that some people think these deer's runoff public land or
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: some of these deer go completely nocturnal. Um, can you
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: elaborate on those two points? So did you see that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: these deer did they stay in the same general areas
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: pressure but just stop moving as much? Did they change
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: the time of day they moved in more? I'd love
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: to hear the details of that. Yeah. So um uh
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: in these study areas where we are, which is you know,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: ninety plus percent forested, um, the deer. The average home
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: range of a deer is about a square mile. A
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: male and a female deer. Except during the rut, male
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: home ranges expand to two some of them up to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: three four square miles. But if you exclude the rut,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the home range of these deers about a square mile UM.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: During the during the rifle season, they don't leave their
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: home range. Um, they've the ones that are still alive.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Of course, we're only callering adult deer that are at
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: least a year and a half old. So in there
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: the first hunting season that they're watching them, they've already
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: survived two hunting seasons. We're monitoring them during their third
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: hunting season, so they're two and a half years old
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: at least summer older. Um. So what those deer do
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: is they've through by just getting lucky. Have found out
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: that if I go to this spot in my home range,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: I am unlikely to be disturbed and I'm just gonna
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: hunker down there until this hunting season is over with.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: And so where I said a home range of um
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: a deer is about a square mile when you look
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: during that two week hunting season, UM, it averages about
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: a hundred acres. Interesting, did you did you look at
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: this at all? Or did you did you separate out
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: any of this data by age class. Oh could you
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: see with a four and a half old buck or
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: older they moved X and a two and a half
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: yearld though moved. Why did you look at anything along
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: on those lines? UM? No, we haven't, because first of all,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: we don't age. We only age our dear as UM juveniles,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: which is less than a year old or adults over
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: a year old UM. And the reason we do that
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: is that it's just too difficult and we don't really
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: need to know how old it is UM other than
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: juvenile adult and adult UM. And the other thing I
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: can say is that looking at dear that we've followed
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: for two three years, UM, their behavior does doesn't change.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: What about broken down by sex UM? Well, both males
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and females have a high spot during that intensive hunting
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: period UM, although bucks from what I've seen UM are
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit different and that they tend to like UM.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: If they're going to hide out, it's gonna be on
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: a on a ridge or um on a crust of
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: So we've got two different you know, I should need
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: to back up a little bit. Two of our study
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: areas are in central Pennsylvania, which is what's called in
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: the ridge and Valley region. So we have these long
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: linear ridges and valleys that go and sort of a
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: southwest and northeast direction. In our northern study area, it's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: up on what's called the Allegheny Plateau, and this is
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: it looks very mountainous, but really what it is is
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: it's a flat plane that eroded, so the mountaintops are flat,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: and then you have the steep drainages where erosion has
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: occurred over the millennia, and so in both of these places,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: the bucks will sit either on the on the edge
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: of one of these steep um ravines or on the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: top of a ridge, and that's their preferred hiding spot,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: usually in a place where if it's flat to the west,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: they can smell anything that's coming from the prevailing winds.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: And on the eastern side, there's no way you'd sneak
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: up on them because it's you know, very steep slopes,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and so if they do get disturbed, they can just
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: jump off that point and heckn in thirty seconds to
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: a minute, they would be hundreds of feet below you
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: in elevation and you know, half a mile away. Now,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: the dough the females, they tend to have a similar
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: hiding spot, but not It's just seems to be an
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: area that they run to where they didn't get disturbed.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: I love that you were able to see this with
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: your studies and these these collar deer because because what
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you described there as far as these typical hideouts, you know,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: it is right in line with what so many hunters
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: have seen as far as where you know, these bucks
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: tend to like to bed, you know so often from observation, UM,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: you'll find that these mature bucks especially find a great
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: betting spot or hiding spots you might call it, you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: during a pressure time of year, up on a ridge
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: where they can see down ahead of them, they can
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: smell behind them. And it makes sense from a from
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: a rational kind of logic standpoint if you just think,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: how would a deer be able to survive? Um, But
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: it's really neat to see the actual data, UM prove
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: that too. UM. Yeah, I just posted a blog today,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: UM where it's a buck that we've followed for three years,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and I show some of these spots where he hit
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: out on these ridges and some of them are right
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: next to a road, but they're steep, you know, there
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: are you know, if you for every um two feet
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: that you go horizontally, you need to go a foot up.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: So they're very steep and and not many people, certainly
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: not me, are going to be trapesing around those areas,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and they they discover them and that's where they sit. Now.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: You mentioned, I think you said there was two of
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: your study locations in the ridge and valley location. There's
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: one study location on the plateau. Um. Did you say
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: there's four total study areas. Was that right? Well, two
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: are up on the plateau or two are in the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: ridge and valley? Okay, okay. I was gonna ask if
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: you had a study group that was more in a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: flat land type scenario. But it sounds like you don't write.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Lots of people have asked, you know what, we're going
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: to study deer and more, you know, egg um situations
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: and probably not for a while because that's even more
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: complicated habitat situation um and but and there. Yeah, so yeah,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of insights in those situations.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: These are just large tracts of public land um predominantly
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: forceded so you know, so that's sort of the topography issues.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: The other one is the the idea about deer you know,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: going on private land and so on the bound. We've
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: got deer that are that we've captured that spend time
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: on public land and private land, and quite frankly, most
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: of them they're hiding spot is on public land. Um,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: they might go down into the private land is more
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: likely to have some crops and food resources. But um,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: like I said, these or don't leave their home range.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, they'd be nuts to leave your home range. Right.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: They know it like the back of their hand, so
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: they know where to go. They know you know where
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: the danger is. Um, So they're going to stay within
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: their home range. They're just seeking out spots that they've discovered.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: They're not going to get disturbed. What about any patterns
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: that show once a deer maybe population or uh individual
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: deer has been spooked or bumped pressured, how how long
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: before it returns back to its normal pattern? Yeah, that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: would be a great question. But that's a really difficult
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: one to answer because we haven't radio colored any hunters. Yea, Um,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you that, um, uh, you know,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: like we've got I've got One of our blog post
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: is about a dough I call her Hillside Dough because
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: she had this spot that was in her home range.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: It was the steepest spot in her home range, on
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: the side of a ridge, and that's where she hid
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: and she would go there every day. Um. And there
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: was one Saturday where so you know, like early in
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: the hunting season, the first week or so, there's a
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: lot a lot of guys are just sitting, um, and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: then later in the week they'll start to put on drives.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: And so especially that first Saturday and the second week,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: and there was one day where you could see where
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: she was in her hiding spot and she got kicked
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: out and she made this big loop around the edge
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: of her home range that she didn't normally do. But
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: the next day, you know, and so then that night
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: she was out doing a normal thing, and the next
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: morning she went back up to that same hiding spot.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: M So my guess is that even if you bumped
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: a deer out of that hiding spot, odds are it's
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: going to go back to it. Yeah, it makes sense.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: As you said, Um, it makes the most sense from
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: a survival standpoint to stick to an area, you know,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: like the back of your hand, versus going somewhere brand
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: new when faced with danger. You know, if I was
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: faced with danger, I would probably run into my bedroom
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: and locked the door. Um, I wouldn't just go running
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: willy nilly somewhere brand new. Um. So that you know
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: that makes sense? Um. Now, some other things I've seen
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: you guys right about in the past related to some
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: factors that you guys took a look at, some outside
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: factors you took a look at to see how they
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: may or may not impact deer movement. And you know,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners, myself and Dan included, we
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: kind of obsess over what types of things might impact
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: dear as far as how often they move or how
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: early in the day they might move, you know, like,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: does the moon impact when dear move? Does certain weather
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: factors like temperature or barre metric pressure or anything like
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: that impact when and how much dear move? Um? Can
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: you speak to that? Have there been anything's you've looked
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: at it on those lines and what have you learned? Yes? So,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: um so. Obviously the moon's a big one. Um. You
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: hear a lot about um about the moon affecting the
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: timing of the rut um, weather influencing the rut um weather,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and moon just influencing dear movements in general. UM. So
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't say we have the final answer
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: on this because a lot of people over the years
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: have looked at try to look at the influence of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: moon on movements and that sort of thing, UM, and
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and the results are sort of equivocal. When you go
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: in the literature, some people said, yeah, there is an
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: effect of the moon on movements, and other people say, no,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find any effect. UM. But I think with
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: these as more and more of these satellite collars are
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: being used and we can get much more detailed information
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: on their movements than we could UM in the past.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: With with the older collorum technology, we'll be able to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: get at this. But from what we've been finding in
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: our study is we can find very little influence of
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the moon on anything. UM. The Game Commission UM looked
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: at road killed females, thousands of them over UH seven
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: year period and UM basically there's no relationship between the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: moon and the timing of when females get pregnant. UM.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: We've looked at the effects of I had an undergraduate
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: student this summer looking at to see if UM. So,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: for example, in a full moon, you might expect deer
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: might move more at night and then to feed, and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: then they wouldn't have to move during the day. And Um,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: she did find an effect statistically, but from a biological standpoint,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, the difference in movement was like you and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: I making an extra trip to the bathroom or something
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: during the day. So she could find no effect of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: of moon conditions on on deer movements. Um. She also
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: looked at rain and wind. Um, there's some influence there. Um.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I I think it's kind of funny that we've looked
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: at this a couple of different times, and the suggestion
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: is that males are kind of whimps. Um. If it's raining,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: they're less likely to move, but females don't seem to care. Um.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: And then with wind, Um, there isn't much effect. Um.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: If it's really calm, they're less likely to be moving.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: If there's a little bit of wind, they'll move a
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: little bit more. Um. Some evidence to suggest that when
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you get very windy conditions they'll move more. But again, um,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: we've a lot of this work. We've limited to the
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: month of October because that's our archery season and deer
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: aren't really affected by the hunting. That's going on at
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: that time of year. Um. But on the other hand,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: it's a beautiful time of year and you don't get
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of wind, you don't get a lot of rain,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: So we really can't say, you know, a whole lot
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: about how that influences their move you know, I can
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: say for October there doesn't seem to be a lot
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: of effect, but you don't get hurricanes in October and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: things like that, right, Right, So the it sounds like
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: from what you guys are seeing in your studies, and
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: this is probably something that we as deer hunters would
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: say is true to just anecdotally, nothing impacts a deer
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: movement as much as hunting pressure. Right. If there's anything
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: that has a really significant impact, it's that. Would you agree, Yeah, yeah,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, you don't need to you don't need
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: statistics to see that when you look at these movies
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: that I posted on the blog about what deer doing
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: during that that during our rifle season with the intensive
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure. People have asked me about archery and I've
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: looked at deer movements that time of year and you can't, um,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: you can't tell anything. And then of course in between
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: that's the rut and the rut you know, they're they're
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: just in the rut and they're going seven. Yeah. Have
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: you seen any patterns as far as buck behavior movement
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: during the rut? I remember seeing one study I do
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: not remember where this study came out of UM, where
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: they had seen that UM, with these types of GPS
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: or satellite collars, they could actually see that many bucks
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: would go to kind of focal points within their home
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: range during the rut, two to three or four different
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: focal points, these likely being doe hotspots or doe betting
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: years that they would check, you know, every twenty four
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: hours or so many hours throughout that running time period. UM.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: Did you see anything like that in your study or
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: if you, have you seen anything else as far as
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: dear behavior buck behavior during the rut through your own studies? Yeah,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: that's a really great question. I read that paper, UM.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: That work was done in Texas and UM, and so I,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I looked at a lot of our you know,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: because I've made these movies to look at these deer movements,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: and I could not discern a pattern. And then I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: read this paper and I looked through that and I
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: can honestly say that I, you know, just visually looking
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: at movements can see nothing like that UM. In fact,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: my students and I have been talking and we want
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: to investigate that UM a little more quantitatively. And one
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: of the things we're going to do is that we
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: do have UM in certain situations, we have both males
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: and females in the same area, and so we can
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: look at both of their movements, and in fact, UM
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: we can see when a breeding event probably occurred, because
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: these satellite colors are very accurate. You know, they're within
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: tens of meters, and you can see like these this
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: male and a female UM will have overlapping home ranges,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: and the mail will be moving around, and then suddenly
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: those two animals will be right next to each other
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: for twelve to twenty four hours, so you know that
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: that's probably a male tending a female. And so what
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: we'd like to do is take those situations where we
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: know there's a male and a female, a male tending
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: a female, and seeing if we can detect patterns of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: movement that are different from other parts of the rut,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: and see if we can actually distinguish that. But I
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: can honestly say that I have not been able to
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: detect any pattern of males making regular movements UM supposedly, UM,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: you know, trying to check out females. Instead, what I
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: see in our study areas as males UM basically doubling,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: tripling their home range area and just moving constantly seven,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: just going back and forth across their study area as
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: quickly as they and constantly. UM, my guess is searching
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: for females. In addition, if you look at home ranges
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: of females during this time of year when they're most
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: likely to be um inestrius um, their home range actually shrinks.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: And that makes a lot of sense. Right, if you're
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: lost in the woods and you want to be found,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: you sit still. So if a female's out there and
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: she wants to be found by a male, don't move
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: around a lot. If you want to find a female,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: move around a lot. And so that's what we see,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: the males moving around a lot and the females actually
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: reducing their movements. What what percentage? And I don't know,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: well maybe maybe you do know this. Um. You mentioned
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: that during the rut, it seems like these bucks are
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: just moving all over the place seven. Um. Is that
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: literal or what percentage? If you've if you've tracked this
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: to to this level of detail, what percentage of the
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: day during the rut is a luck actually like betted
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: down versus up and moving? And then what does that
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: look like, you know, in a period of the year
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: that is not during the run, um betted versus on
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: his feet moving? Yes, um, No, you know the in Pennsylvania, um,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: half the females are bred by around the November so UM.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: So that um. First that you've got like a two
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: or three week period in November. Um that that most
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: of the breeding occurs and um and during that time period,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of the males basically do not have do
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: not exhibit that crepuscular behavior, you know, where they're active
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: in the around sunrise and active around sunset and middle
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: of the day and middle of the night they're less
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: likely to be active. That just disappears they're just going
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: seven um and and yeah, that's what that's what they're doing.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: And then outside of the rut then they fall back
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: to that as you mentioned, cris carepascular behavior where they're
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: most active at dawn and dusk, um, not so much
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: in millian night, not so much in the middle of
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: the day. But it doesn't sound like you guys have
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: ever looked. Actually, you know, on average a buck spends
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: six of his day moving around of his day Betted,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of curious of that particular number. I've
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: never actually seen anywhere. Yeah, jeez, I think I did
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: a blog post about this a little bit ago. Um.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: This one buck that I followed, um during the peak
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: of the rut, except for maybe four to five am,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: when it looked like he took a rest every day.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: The rest of the time he was just going yikes.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: What about wounded deer? Have you like, tracked a deer
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: that was known to be wounded by a hunter and
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: followed his patterns you know, maybe not a critical wound
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: and how he acted after being shot. Um? Not really. Um.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: You know, we catch these deer and they disappear. We
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: do know one that um uh got hit by a
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: car um and survived. Um. But I haven't to be honest,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: I haven't looked in detail to see what his movements were. UM.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: We you know, we don't see a lot a crippling loss. Um.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: You know where a hunter shot a deer and then
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: it died and it wasn't recovered. Um. We don't see
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of I mean, in the seventeen years I've
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: been studying deer in Pennsylvania, we don't see a lot
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: of illegal harvest. Um. So yeah, I don't have a
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: lot of insights on that. Okay, we're gonna take one
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: final break here for word from our partners at Matthew's Archery.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: And as you've heard over the past few weeks, Matthews
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: has released their new triacts both and today we've got
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: Matthews design engineer Marque has to talk about one part
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: of the technology and that bow, the new three D damping.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: If you can imagine your point of contact, which is
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: your grip on the bow that's zero zero. You can
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: turn your bow in three directions from that position, so
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: you can imagine forward to back, you imagine left or right,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: and then you can imagine that twisting motion all that
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: happens from the grip. And if you can maximize the
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: effectiveness of the damper in all three of those directions,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: which we we have done well um within the past,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: but as our risers get more and more eye shaped,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: which is a really stable shooting platform, the damper inherently
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: got underneath the grip and you lost that twisting benefit.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: So by moving it out in front of the riser,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: you get the benefit of the eye shaped riser, which
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: is very stable, like I said, and you now have
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: a system that is working in all the directions that
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: it should and it really dampens the vibration. Well, what
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: little bit that we have from your perspective, Why does
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: that matter in a hunting situation? That? Why does it
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: matter to to eliminate even more sound, even more vibration? Sure, well,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: it's two things. One, it's just the experience of shooting.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: Uh No, one wants a buzzy bow whenever they shoot.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: It's the experience of that. It's letting the arrow go
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: and just nothing. You don't feel anything but too. Obviously,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: in a hunting situation, your target is not a film target.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: It can move. Being as stealthy as possible is a
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: goal that has always been around. And the quieter you
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: can be, the more accurate your shot is going to be.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: And that's not necessarily because you're shooting better, but it's
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: because the target is not reacting as fast or at all.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about the Matthews Try
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: acts and their three D damping technology, you can visit
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Matthews Inc. Dot com. Here's another question as we're as
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: we're looking into these specific examples out of curiosity. Another
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: thing that I feel like, well two, here's two things
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: so too common. Um oh, old wives, tales of sorts.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe that we like to talk about a lot. One
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: being uh, the October lull. A lot of people like
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: to say that they believe dear just don't move, especially
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: bucks don't move very much in mid October. Have you
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: looked at this at all? Have you been able to
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: see if there's actually any quantifiable decrease in movement UM
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: during mid October. From everything I've read and seen, that
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: is not the case. But have you guys looked into
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: that in your own study? Um? Yeah, Well I'll be
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: honest here, Until until this summer, I didn't even know
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: what the October lull was UM. And I think a
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: lot of it is from people looking at harvest data
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: and UM and making inferences from the harvest data the
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: fact that a lot of deer get shot in archery
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: early in October and then it tapers off and then
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: it picks up again and in in November and so
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: um so, and that's more of a hunter behavior issue
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: than a deer issue, because you need to look at
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: the number of people that are out hunting. UM. So,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: for example, I know my my neighbor is a big
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: archery hunter, and he's out there the first couple of weeks,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: but then he's like, well, you know, this was fun.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: I got it out of my system, but I'm really
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: going to wait till November one because that's when that
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: I know that rut's going to start kicking in. And
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: so I suspect a lot of this idea of the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: October lull is more an effect of hunter behavior and
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: hunter effort UM I have not seen any evidence of
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: in October lull. Yeah, well, I think that's that's what
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: most of the other studies that I have have read
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: and seen seemed to indicate as well, that that there's
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: not actually any real decrease and dear movement, but but
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: certainly um hunter activity and other things that that might
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: change what we see as hunters UM and might change
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit of where they spend time, but probably
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: not the quantity of time they move around. So so
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to see that you guys haven't seen that
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of things going in on and
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: on in October. I mean food source sources are maturing.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: So you know, if you're an area with a lot
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: of oaks and it's a spotty year, that could cause
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: changes and dear movements. UM. You know, people ask me
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: about how you know food influences them. Unfortunately I don't
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: have a map. If I had a map of the
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: you know, oak production across our study areas, I could
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: answer that question, but I don't. UM. But you know,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different things in the ruts kicking in. Um.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: You know that last week in October, probably of our
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: females are bred by the end of October, so that
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: last week and in October you will see some males
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: that will exhibit you know that those behavior movements, those
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: real intensive movements. UM. Yes, So there's a lot of
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: stuff going on that that I think more of it
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: is the excitement of the early October opener of archery
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: and then not much is happening until the rut kicks
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: in at the end of October. So, so is there
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: anything else, Dwayne that we haven't touched on that that
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: hunters need to know that you guys have learned from
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: this study to this point yet any big takeaways you
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: guys have had yet that that you wish more hunters
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: were aware of, or um that we would find helpful. Well,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: I guess a few things. I mean, I'm not sure
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: if to think about, you know, especially during the you know,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: during that rifle season. UM. So if there was any advice,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: um um I would give hunters is a, UM, don't
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: give up on the afternoon hunt. Um. What we've found
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: is that when you're sitting in the early morning, those
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: deer are already in their hiding spot and they're sitting
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: to um. Of course, a lot of deer shot then.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: But you know, these bucks that we're following, which are
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: two and a half, three and a half, four and
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: a half years old, a lot of them are just
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: sitting when you're sitting. But by lunchtime, um, a lot
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: of them have started making their movements. Um. And and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: so I think you, you know, pack a lunch and
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: don't give up on the afternoon hunt. UM. The other
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: thing is knowing where these big bucks or older bucks hide,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: you're not going to sneak up on them, so you
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: might want to rethink the tree stand and um, you know,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: deer drives are probably going to be effective. Now you know,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: you may not be the guy who gets it, but
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: that deer is more likely to be harvested. I think
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: if hunters worked cooperatively. Yeah, that's that's probably the two
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: big takeaways that that I would say that you know
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: that at least popped in my head as I've been
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: looking at these deer and thinking, man, how would you
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: ever get to this guy? Because he's got the perfect
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: hiding spot right right. These these bucks that make it
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: to those older age classes, they make it for a reason, right,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: They've made it to four or five or whatever because
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: they were able to find these little hidy holes that
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: give them an advantage to to avoid suckers like us
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: that go out there looking for him. So it makes
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: sense and it definitely makes us work work for our
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: venice and no doubt about that. Uh, Dan, do you
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: have it? Do you have a final question or anything
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: before we wrap things up? Yeah, I just have one
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: question in regards to decision making by let's say your research.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: All right, We've we see example in other states that
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: people have made a decision that hunting is not a
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: good way or the people don't like hunting, so they
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: pass laws that band hunting and then maybe they capture
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: deer and do castration, you know they castrated or uh
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: certain like in Canada they've outlawed certain types of bear
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: hunting because of emotion over logic. Do you, I guess
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on when research and science are
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: trumped when it comes to decision making based off of emotions.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: Help help me here, UM, So your question is about
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: how do you get Do you get frustrated? Maybe when
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: some of the uh, the I guess organizations that you
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: work with maybe don't make a decision. You know, the
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: re search or the science says yes, you should do this,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: but maybe public opinion or emotion trumps that and maybe
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: a different decision is made. UM. Well, it only frustrates
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: me UM when clear goals and objectives have been set
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: um and identified, and biologists have taken those goals and
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: objective collected data and said, if this is your desired
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: goal or objective, Um, this is what you need to do,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and that is ignored. UM. That's frustrating because you know,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: as scientists or managers, we're not We're not the ones
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: who say this is this is what the condition should be. UM,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: that society's decision so as long as society says, hey,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: this is what we want, aren't wildlife biologists are perfectly
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: happy going out to collect data and to make a
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: recommendation saying Okay, if this is your goal, um, this
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: is where you are, and this would be this action
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: would help you get to where you want to be.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: And when that's ignored, that's frustrating. And that happens. That happens,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: you know, not that's not just an anti hunter thing.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you know an agency has goals and
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: objectives for dear densities and they say, this is where
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: you want to be and this is what you need
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: to do, and then the decision is to, for example,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: not harvest as many deer as what the biologists recommends,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: or completely ignore their recommendation. That's really frustrating. Yeah, you
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: can definitely see that being the case. And it certainly
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: does seem like to your point, Dan, that these types
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: of things certainly are happening, and you hear from from
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: other people involved in the management side of things that yes,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: science based decision making definitely does get trumped by politics
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: or um certain segments of of of the society being
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: really noisy and the grease here the squeaky wheel getting
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: the grease sometimes, and that to something I think we
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: all need to stay vigilant about and uh, pay attention
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: to what's happening, and um, you know, as best as possible,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: keep people like you out there, Dwayne, who can help,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: who can help our managers understand what's happening, and UM,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: make sure we're managing these places as best as possible.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: And from everything I've seen, it certainly seems like you
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: guys are doing that well. You know, everything in life
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: is about relationships and trust, and so one of my
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: objectives with the blog and this research is too, well,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: the research will help inform management, but the blog is
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: to share in form nation and to hopefully show as
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: many people hunters and non hunters alike, UM, that we
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: do have information that UM, that we have a skilled
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: set of managers and researchers in Pennsylvania, and that we're
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: trying to do the best we can with the resources
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: we have to help make better decisions for a deer
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: and for us. Yeah, and and for anyone out there
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: listening who has not yet seen the blog that you
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: just mentioned, UM, I highly recommend checking it out and
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: following along because, as I mentioned already. You guys. From
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: everything I've seen over several years now that I've been following,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: you are posting some really interesting things, um, from that
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: research standpoint, from a data driven standpoint that we don't
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: see a ton of in the popular deer hunting media. Um. So, Dwayne,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: where can people go if they want to follow that
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: blog or follow your study in more detail? Where can
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: they find that stuff online? Yeah? Just um, the the
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: r r L is um ecosystems dot PSU, dot E
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: d you slash dear. Okay, we will link to that
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: on the website on wired Hunt. Um if you can't
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: remember that you r L. And I'm guessing also if
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: someone just google dear four study, that probably find it
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: that way too as well. Right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: they would. You gotta love the power of Google. Well, we'll, Dwayne,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: anything else you want to touch on before we wrap
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: this up. No, thank you very much for the opportunity
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: to share some of our findings and spread the word
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: about the research we're doing here. Yeah. Absolutely, and thank
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: you Dwyane. You know one final quick thing I noticed
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: one once when I was on your website. There's a
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: a link or a portion of the website dedicated to
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: getting hunters involved and actually sharing some of their data
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: with you. Um. Is that right? And is that something
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: you need? Do you need more hunters participating to help
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: in any way? Yeah? So, um so if hunters are
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: hunting on our study areas, um, there, it's posted with
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: signs UM and there's a toll free number to call
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: and they can just call us and give us their
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: license number and and then at the end of the
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: season we send them a survey. Okay, and uh, and
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: maybe we can get some of these guys to throw
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: some radio collars on two right to help with your study. Yeah,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: well you can, you know, you get those apps, you know,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Matt my Walk and stuff, and yeah, that would be cool,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: but we're not there yet. Yeah. I was in all seriousness.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, there's there's gotta be a way
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: to do something like that, to to get a number
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: of hunters to have an app that tracks their location
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: that you could use in conjunction with radio color Deer.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: You know, someday would be really neat to see a
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: study like that. Um. And I'll just try to take
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: credit for it right here that that we were the
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: first ones come for that idea. Right, No, you weren't
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: because we actually did something. But um, but that was
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: back when you you know you all we had were
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: handheld GPS units and it was a lot of work,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, out in the field talk getting hunters to
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: wear units and getting them back and stuff. But yeah,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: pretty soon if we can convince people to run the
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: app on their phone and then email it to us,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: yeah we could do some of that stuff. We're pretty
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: much there possibly. Yeah, fascinating stuff. So all right, well, Dwayne,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap this up and just want to thank
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: you again. We really appreciate the time and I look
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: forward to continue to follow along with the blog and
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: seeing what kind of other interesting stuff you guys find out.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: All right, thank you, and that will do it for
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: us today. Definitely hope you enjoyed this one. Before we go,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: just want to let you know that we will be
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: off next week, taking little time to spend with our
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: families and friends and enjoy the holidays. So if you're
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: board next week, go ahead and listen to some past
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: episodes if you'd like. There's plenty of those three Wire
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: Done podcasts. You can go back and listen to sixty
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: two Wild podcasts. You can go back and listen to
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: another twenty one White Tailed Q and A episode, so
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: you definitely have plenty to dig into. Um So, in
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: the meantime that we do want to thank our partners
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: who have made this podcast possible all year. We really
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: really do appreciate these companies lending a hand to help
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: us create this thing. You know, we we put this
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: thing out there, but it does take time and energy
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: and funding. So big things to sit a gear YETI Cooler's,
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, the White Tailed Institute of North America,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: Trophy Ridge and Hunt Terra Maps, And finally, of course,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: thank you all for listening. I appreciate you taking time
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: to spend with us really all year, all season. The
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: fact that you've been falling along with our stories, supporting us,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: commenting and sending messages of encouragement, sharing your stories, that's
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: that's just incredible. It's it's been an awesome yeor and
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: we just appreciate you being here along for the ride. Also,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: just want to wish you all a very merry Christmas,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: Happy Holidays, Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed these
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: coming days and weeks with those you love, friends and family.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: Hopefully get out in the tree stand a little bit
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: more to enjoy these final hunts of the year. And
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: until next time, and until next year, I hope you'll
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: stay wired to hung