I think the issue with studies is when they’re compiled into averages

May be wrong. I’m no biologist and not trying to be. Just find deer especially bucks interesting


I’ll say this because what I’ve seen with Covid.
I don’t think many things are a one answer situation. I think many times there can be more than one truth about a subject and sometimes those factual truths may contradict each other depending on other factors. I’m not suing there are no absolutes but most often variables about certain situations.

I’ll try it like this. Not all does have the same home range size. Studies indicate that orphaned fawns have smaller home ranges. My belief at the farm is does come down off the hills to hide in the corn and feed on the beans as they birth fawns. Highly nutritious browse and cover for ideal conditions. Not all does in that area do this but feel this to be the case and probably stems from their moms generationally and so forth.

Let’s take our chart back to restocking and simulate what that might have looked like at a restocking site…..Wouldnt you agree that the interior circle probably wouldn’t make it to 100 DPSM before deer started moving into the zero area?? Are we in agreement that the scenario below is not going to happen for very long before the void area around the release site begins to fill in??

If we are in agreement……Then do those principles completely change over time?? If we take such and such plantation and lower the population around it to zero…..are their deer going to behave any different than the restocked deer??.....Do we have to take it all the way to zero though for change to occur? What if we just took it down to 25??

I think that would be attributed over a time period
I’d assume that if habitat is as good the does would also set dropping a higher number of fawns which would exponentially increase deer numbers in the outer circle of which would slow any migration form the inner circle.

There still too many ifs, ands or buts and why I say there is more to it than that.

Don’t ask me!!! The more I read and learn from Matt proves just how little I know or thought I knew about deer.
Unfortunately no biskets this morning. I had to go out on our local river in regards to an unoccupied boat floating down river. Lucky the owner just didn’t secure it well enough and it drifted away. But I am now cooking cubed brisket in a thick brown onion and garlic gravy!! With some of my stewed sweet corn on the side.

Deer do spread out naturally through dispersal, and both bucks and does do it to various extents. It’s also an individual behavior and the distances they travel depends on the individual.

Yesterday my grandson asked me what time the deer would show up. I told I'd made a reservation for 4:15 pm. About 4:15 a small buck and doe stepped out of the treeline. I don't know about dispersal but I can make a reservation.

🤣

You should be a guide

……and here I think Cartervj giving us the other half of the dispersal rate equation……Not just the density pushing outward from the high-density inner circle but also the resistance pushing back……..Not just dictated by fawn births but also by the number of deer that hunters kill in the outer circle....How much resistance do we have to the inner circle dispersing??

Sonnet me with that. I’m just yaking and it’s been a long while since Ives stayed at a Holiday Inn

I think you are correct though……If we change the density in the outer circle from 0 to 50 to 100…..each would have a different impact on the dispersal rate of the inner circle……With the restocking scenario where we have 0 dpsm in the outer circle there is zero resistance to dispersal……So the DPSM in the inner circle will never get to the same high densities in that restocking scenario as it eventually will when we begin to increase the dpsm in the outer circle and resistance to dispersal starts building….If we raise the dpsm in the outer circle to 100 as well then you would likely form an interior core where doe dispersal was nearly shut down and populations built to higher densities……vice versa…..lower the outer circle dpsm back down and increase that doe dispersal…..

That’s pretty much what I think likely occurred in Bullock Co for example……You had hunters shoot a bunch of extra does and in doing so they reduced the resistance to dispersal of some of the high density “cores”