The Poor Orcas Islanders... too many deer

[csaaphill]

 
This reply takes the cake what an ass.

Having recently moved here from Camas Washington, where we were plagued by hunters shooting at all hours, and there were a more than plentiful supply of cougar, bear and coyote to keep populations in check, I have to say that I do not see that San Juan Island has a significantly larger deer population than the area we came from.

 As an avid gardener I understand the frustrations when overgrazing takes out your prize plants, and I can only imagine that in farming situations this is magnified a thousand fold, but weighing up the pros and cons with a new eye I think on balance we should leave the deer alone.

They are smaller but definitely less disease ridden than many on the mainland I have seen.

I am sure that there are more pressing environmental issues for us to consider, such as oil exports and refineries that could decimate our seas if something went wrong, I think it is prudent to pick our battles.

[csaaphill]

The.... let bow hunters in was good.

[lokidog]

Mule deer to the SJI?  Sounds like bad science (at least based on the studies I read and commented on about 18 months ago). 

Those island Blacktail are the size they are because of their environment, not genetics.  Removal of predators resulted in too many deer, which have over-utilized the food resources available and created scarcity of browse for the entire population.  When food is scarce for maternal does, it results in underweight fawns at birth.  Those fawns must then try to thrive through the same scarcity of food during their early growth phases.  As you might guess, after suffering malnutrition since they were just a few cells growing in the mothers placenta, a population of abnormally small adult deer eventually becomes the norm.   

If you took a freshly impregnated island doe and put her in an environment without food shortage, the fawn would likely be of normal birth size and grow to normal adult BT proportions, assuming it had adequate food during it's early years.

I agree, to a point.... I believe that after generations of being in the islands, and on different islands, the gene pool has shifted to favor smaller deer that need less winter browse/food to survive.  There is some genetic mixing between the islands to help keep things interesting, but I do think that if you took a deer from Decatur and fed it all it could eat, it would still be smaller than a deer on Lopez or the mainland.  The evidence to back this up is that there are pockets of deer on each of the islands that do not have a scarcity of food due to their home range happening to be in a food rich location like alfalfa near orchards, and these deer appear to be relatively the same size as all of the other deer on each island.

[Night goat]

what about the long term impact from Spieden island? heard a lot of rumors about those critters getting onto the other islands

[lokidog]

what about the long term impact from Spieden island? heard a lot of rumors about those critters getting onto the other islands

Like what, sheep/deer hybrids, fallow/blacktail hybrids?     I've never heard of anything being seen on another island, though maybe the Mouflon on Stuart came from there....

[kevinlisa06]

I just offered up my assistance in removing a deer or 2 see if I get bashed or not.


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[Night goat]

what about the long term impact from Spieden island? heard a lot of rumors about those critters getting onto the other islands

Like what, sheep/deer hybrids, fallow/blacktail hybrids?     I've never heard of anything being seen on another island, though maybe the Mouflon on Stuart came from there....

seen some deer with a white backside, seen spotted deer.... that kinda stuff

[lokidog]

There are piebald deer on all of the islands, nothing to do with Spieden.  I've never heard of the others. Either way, there would not be enough of an impact to effect deer populations on other islands, IMO.

[wendigo]

“I just cannot find enough places for enough people to go to kill enough deer to make a difference,” she said. “I’m not 100 percent convinced we could ever reduce the population with hunting as a tool alone. Because we can’t get enough people out on the landscape to kill enough deer we’re not ever going to reduce the population with hunting. We’re never going to reduce it, probably, totally all over the island. Don’t really know because we’ve never really tried.”

Give off islanders tags and directions to feel free to hunt properties and they will overload the ferry system coming over.

The problem will just solve itself when the population crashes. There are already a ton of piebald deer running around on that island which is a sure sign of a weak gene pool.


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[fishnfur]

“I just cannot find enough places for enough people to go to kill enough deer to make a difference,” she said. “I’m not 100 percent convinced we could ever reduce the population with hunting as a tool alone. Because we can’t get enough people out on the landscape to kill enough deer we’re not ever going to reduce the population with hunting. We’re never going to reduce it, probably, totally all over the island. Don’t really know because we’ve never really tried.”

The problem will just solve itself when the population crashes. There are already a ton of piebald deer running around on that island which is a sure sign of a weak gene pool.

The piebald gene will stay in that population just fine if there are not enough predators to remove them, and since it doesn't make them run slower, it is really only detrimental when you throw humans with guns into the mix.  Piebalds are found throughout most animal populations.  I bet they don't consider it a weakness.   

[fishnfur]

Mule deer to the SJI?  Sounds like bad science (at least based on the studies I read and commented on about 18 months ago). 

Those island Blacktail are the size they are because of their environment, not genetics.  Removal of predators resulted in too many deer, which have over-utilized the food resources available and created scarcity of browse for the entire population.  When food is scarce for maternal does, it results in underweight fawns at birth.  Those fawns must then try to thrive through the same scarcity of food during their early growth phases.  As you might guess, after suffering malnutrition since they were just a few cells growing in the mothers placenta, a population of abnormally small adult deer eventually becomes the norm.   

If you took a freshly impregnated island doe and put her in an environment without food shortage, the fawn would likely be of normal birth size and grow to normal adult BT proportions, assuming it had adequate food during it's early years.

I agree, to a point.... I believe that after generations of being in the islands, and on different islands, the gene pool has shifted to favor smaller deer that need less winter browse/food to survive.  There is some genetic mixing between the islands to help keep things interesting, but I do think that if you took a deer from Decatur and fed it all it could eat, it would still be smaller than a deer on Lopez or the mainland.  The evidence to back this up is that there are pockets of deer on each of the islands that do not have a scarcity of food due to their home range happening to be in a food rich location like alfalfa near orchards, and these deer appear to be relatively the same size as all of the other deer on each island.

To a certain extent, I agree with you.  It makes total sense that smaller bodied deer need less food and are thus more successful in staying in the population long enough to breed.  The question is how much genetic effect has this increased survival and breeding success had on that population,  (considering that there are not massive die-offs due to starvation) during the relatively short period of time since predators were removed from the islands?  Not that much, me thinks. You can change genetic phenotypes (outward appearance of an animal based on genetic expression) pretty quickly if you isolate just a few individuals and cross them for the traits your trying to achieve (like dogs), but groups of wild animals take a lot of time to change an entire population.

We've beat this dead horse before, so this is definitely my last whack.   

[predatorG]

I played a team from orcas island in a basketball tournament in June. They said lots of the same things.

If I recall, several eastern states allow you to shoot multiple deer after purchasing a tag. I'm not sure how the deer levels on San Juan compare to certain whitetail areas, but the suggested over the counter second deer tag that someone suggested sounded like a fine idea to me.

[fishnfur]

A free second tag if you tag out on a doe for your first one would go a long way in cutting down the reproductive rates.

[lokidog]

A free second tag if you tag out on a doe for your first one would go a long way in cutting down the reproductive rates.

WI has/had areas called Earn a Buck where that was the case, though the second tag wasn't free. I'd shoot a doe if the tag were $20... and I could still fill my buck tag. 

[Night goat]

if I could get 2 deer on orcas, it wouldn't matter if they had a rack or not. meat is meat