The wording for the WMAs shows changes where they are to be made. My understanding is, if it didn't change, then it doesn't change. By increasing deer season to 23 days, it will allow for hunting deer for 16 days instead of 9 on regulated WMAs
Well have to see if the ODW passes it and how the finished regs are worded to know for sure.
Dallas Barber is a biologist with the ODWC. Here is a quote from him. "Everyone should know that does are the driver of populations. If does weren’t protected on public lands, there would not be many deer left on these public lands. Simply put, the population can’t handle the harvest that would occur. Public land only makes up 3% of total acreage in OK. With that being said 6 to 7% of TOTAL harvest comes off of that small percentage of land."
Thanks Bassin
That's a pretty amazing fact considering the number of WMAs that aren't open to rifle hunting or that don't allow doe harvest at all. Those control hunts must be cleaning up or the archers are doing a great job. If they couldn't handle the over harvest, it's a good thing they never travel off WMAs to private lands either. Again, I'm not a biologist.
ODWC Big Game Biologist Dallas Barber [email protected] if you would like to discuss a little about it.
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I get what you're saying. What doesn't make sense is that if opening a second week on WMAs would hurt the deer population, they why consider opening another week of hunting period? I'll take you up on your offer and shoot him an email. There's so much wrong with the information being passed around, maybe he can clear it up.
So I sent an email and got a response. I'm going to have to call him to discuss this. It seems that not everyone is aware of whats in the new regulations, even ODWC. If anyone would like, I'll keep this updated afterwards.
Please do. Looking forward to reading what you find out. Thank you.
Have you had a chance to visit with Dallas yet?
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