To cull or not to cull?

[kirk1978]

Very interesting interview if you have an hour and 20 minutes to waist listening. Basically says stop culling your oddball bucks.

https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?ite...cMGwVs8lWf_oRU9_R8GKzOctGqw2JOe2iFoBNCWdf0V2Y

 

[Oklahomabassin]

Yeah I agree with the video.

 

[retrieverman]

I’ve shot my share of bucks over the years under the guise of “culling”, but I now believe I mistakenly labeled many or even most of them.

 

[D. Hargrove]

Kinda treat deer like cows and other farm critters, if they are healthy and productive just leave 'em be. If they are sick, too old to reproduce or obviously ready to move on then cull it is. I am not an wildlife professional, just an old farmer that has seen too many a herd reduced to the point of stupidity due to so called culling.

 

[Buzzgun]

No to culling......you can't cull for antler genetics in a free ranging herd......remember, the doe carries half the genes and there is no way to know what buck sired her in a free ranging herd.

The Sam Noble Foundation has a lot of good info posted on their website and they do deer management seminars that are great. Best thing about it, they aren't trying to sell you anything, so there is no ulterior motive for their studies and no reason to skew the data they acquire.


https://www.noble.org/news/white-tailed-deer/

 

[dlbleak]

I guess I'll leave 'Wonky' alone this year then...
He is blind in his right eye though. I don't know how that's going to affect his ability to survive a predator attack

 

[makeithappen]

You'd be surprised what deer can survive. They're built for it. I guarantee that if culling was a thing way back, hole in the horn and the rest of the B&C non-typical bucks would've died as 2 year olds.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

I guess I'll leave 'Wonky' alone this year then...
He is blind in his right eye though. I don't know how that's going to affect his ability to survive a predator attack

I killed a 6.5 year old buck with 1 eye in 2011.

 

[ElkStalkR]

Yea culling bucks just cuz their antlers don’t look good is crap. I just try to shoot old bucks no matter what their antlers look like.

 

[saddlebum]

I cull them based on how delicious they look