I am writing this letter as a response to some of the recent criticisms by the Minnesota Deer Hunter’s Association and Keith McAffery who is a retired Biologist from Wisconsin. I will break this down into two sections, one for each of the articles that Mr. McAffery wrote in the Fall 2005 issue of their magazine “Whitetales”. Both of the articles were so full of criticisms that it is very obvious that the author did not perform any research on the specific subject matter.
QDM
The first article that I will comment on is the one directed towards what McAffery believes is the philosophy of QDM. The article starts by bringing up examples of QDM in other states. One of the biggest criticisms by anti-QDM individuals is that we shouldn’t try to take things from other states and apply them to the way things are in Minnesota. That immediately take credibility out of this argument. In any event, the things that he brings up in these examples has nothing to do with what we are trying to accomplish here in Minnesota. There certainly are examples of people who claim to be practicing QDM in the south that are not truly practicing full-fledged QDM. That is, they may practice certain aspect of QDM, but the specific examples that McAffery brings up are practices on huge tracts of land (ranches) that put forth their own voluntary regulations that are truly trophy driven. McAffery simply has not researched what QDM in Minnesota is. I was just at the DNR round table where a big topic was land fragmentation where large chunks of land are being sold off in small pieces and the DNR is finding it hard to manage these areas because of it. There is no way you could ever get that much land to be managed the same way. You would likely have to get 20 or more people to agree to the same concept vs. one individual doing what he wants in McAffery’s example. McAffery’s argument regarding the privatization of deer hunting holds no water and will never happen. It does bother me that McAffery would write an article with such accusations in such a way that seems like he has met us and talked to us in depth about what we believe in. I have confirmed with all the board members of MN QDM that he has never talked to any of us. This is both ignorant and unfair.
McAffery mentions in his article that we have created a “biological urgency” as a scare tactic in trying to change things. Please, someone give me one example in which we have done this. Again ignorance and an obvious lack of research on the subject matter.
Let’s get one thing straight. When we talk about “trophy”, 99 percent of all hunters are going to tell you that their definition when it comes down to it is a large, mature buck. This little play on words to provide a little distraction is really starting to get annoying. It’s true that some people can be very proud of any deer they shoot and there is nothing wrong with that. But let’s call a horse a horse. We all know what a trophy is. Please don’t continue with the political games. So, with that being said, we will never apologize for wanting the opportunity to have a chance to shoot a trophy deer. Problem is, if there are no trophy deer to shoot, we can’t shoot them. I have heard of the word “phantom deer” and this is exactly what a trophy deer is in many areas. Every hunter, including a great majority of MDHA hunters would also like this chance. This desire is common and nobody should ever have to apologize. It is likely the very reason a great number of hunters get out to the woods every fall. They are happy not shooting a trophy, but the mere possibility that they may see the deer of a lifetime drives them to get up at 4 am, walk 2 or 3 miles to their stand and sit there all day in 10 degree weather.
Why does everyone assume that QDM will create a society of trophy deer? When talking about buck harvest restriction, it is true that some small bucks will be saved. At best, we can only expect to save 50 – 80 percent of the yearling bucks, depending on which type of regulation we are talking about. So do you consider a small 8-point or 6-point buck a trophy? Under the regulations that we are proposing, this is what you can shoot. Even a 2 ½ year old buck will likely only score 70-110 on the B&C scale. All of those deer would be legal to shoot and they hardly constitute a trophy. And McAffery does not even talk about the other parts of QDM. The only part of QDM that he seems to talk about is our desire to have a more natural balance of bucks and does and our desire to have an older buck age structure. First of all, can he acknowledge the fact that in parts of Minnesota, we do need to shoot more does? Again, research before you write. Second, by saving the bucks that we are targeting, you would essentially only let a few more yearling bucks live to be 2 ½ years of age. Eventually, it will probably also mean a few more older class bucks. But it certainly will not create a society in which we have so many more trophy bucks walking around that we can start charging money to hunt on our land. Again, we don’t have the large land tracts to allow this to happen and we would never support a regulation strict enough to allow this to happen. We believe that this is where the “voluntary” part of QDM comes into play. People can certainly decide to place more strict regulations on themselves. We would like to see more strict regulations, but we are thinking of all hunters in general. We believe this is a nice compromise, why can’t other groups make a compromise as well? This way all hunters can be happy. The trophy class of hunter can feel good knowing that bucks have at least a fighting chance, QDM hunters can be happy knowing that they will get a little help with the things they are trying to accomplish individually, and the rest of the hunters are not restricted greatly. Hunting opportunity will not decrease as McAffery suggests. The does will still be present, and although you may have to sacrifice you buck hunting for one year, the next year you will be able to shoot those extra bucks that you passed on the year before. Only they will be a little bigger. They will have a little more meat as well for you “meat” hunters.
It seems like when everyone hears the words QDM, all they think about is buck restriction. It is about so much more. In fact buck restriction is only about 10 – 20 percent of what QDM is about. You only hear criticisms about the buck restriction part of QDM. You never hear any criticisms about the other parts. So that means QDM is 80 – 90 acceptable to everyone. For many people, QDM is 100 percent acceptable, so why all the negativity? No, buck restriction will not work everywhere in Minnesota, and we acknowledge that. There are areas where it is not appropriate and we trust that the DNR will be able to predict that when there studies are complete. Yes, McAffery, our DNR is researching alternative deer management strategies. Something you should probably know when writing and article of this scope. Another thing that is obvious when reading this article is that McAffery does not know that 84% of all hunters in Minnesota only shoot one deer despite all the antlerless tags issued each year. Another fact that McAffery should know is that only 13% of all hunters will harvest two deer. Only 3% of all deer hunters in Minnesota will harvest three or more deer. This is why buck restriction is needed! If 84% of all hunters only take one deer and they shoot a buck, no doe is taken. Either this is the first deer they see (young bucks are very dumb and vulnerable during the rut when we hold our rifle season) or they hold out for that first buck they see, passing on several does to get to that little buck.
McAffery also states that several bowhunters have rejected buck restrictions. McAffery goes as far as indicating a “vast majority” of all deer hunters are happy with a yearling buck. I would like him to cite his resource on this. I am not aware of any data that suggests this. In fact, the DNR survey suggests that a small majority of hunters overall support some type of restriction. McAffery should review this survey. There is not a hunter in this world that if presented with a yearling buck and a doe at 50 yards and a 12-point buck at 150 yards, would shoot at either the small buck or doe. I would think bowhunters in general would support buck restrictions more than firearms hunters. I would encourage anyone to go to www.bowsite.com and go to the Pennsylvania forum. There is a couple discussions going on there in which the bowhunters of that state discuss what they think about the new antler point restrictions implemented there over the last few years. Wow! If that is not overwhelming support for the restrictions, I don’t know what is!
McAffery makes a connection of QDM with “club hunting” and leases. Again, show me the data that suggests this. Potlatch leases land to potential hunters, but we have absolutely no relationship to them. I even doubt that there is more than 1% of our members who lease land from Potlatch. If you have an issue with them, please take it up with them and leave us out of this.
McAffery talks about hunting for meat. McAffery, maybe in your day, this was more often the case, but gone are the days that people hunt for meat. When you consider what people spend on hunting related products these days, venison turns out to be some of the most expensive meat on this planet. Not only that, I would say that a great majority of hunters would still prefer the taste of a nice juicy beef steak. Not that venison is bad. It is very good when prepared right, but given the expense and popularity of beef, nobody has to use the “living off the land” excuse anymore. If that were the case, more than 84 % would shoot more than one deer. I know I wouldn’t get enough meat off of one deer to provide substance for an entire year.
McAffery suggests that QDM will split hunters into “haves” and “have nots”. That is entirely false. If anything, the hunter’s unwillingness to harvest an adequate amount of does will. Look at the fishing example. Size limits were initially viewed the same way. If anything, it has united them and you hear them all talking about the “trophy fish”. They even have tournaments to see who can catch the biggest one! Is McAffery saying that fishing is too privatized?
In closing this part of my letter, I would like to say that QDM has only added to my hunting experience. Since taking up QDM, I find myself excited about hunting every day of the year. I have as much fun performing management practices as the actual hunting experience itself. If those criticizing QDM are jealous of what I do and wish to take my enjoyment away, they should at least attempt it before condemning it.
Antler Point
Restrictions
The next article that I will respond to is the one in which McAffery writes about antler point restrictions (APR).
Not only does McAffery continue to compare Minnesota to other states, but he starts comparing whitetailed deer to elk and mule deer. Is this guy off his rocker!? To top it off, he compares us to states like Colorado and California. This is incredibly insulting to the readers. Does he really think they don’t see the difference between the states. You not only have climate differences, but you have differences in population dynamics, hunter demographics (much more non-residents who have no stake in the land), hunter attitudes, terrain, agricultural practices, and nutrition available to wildlife. Not to mention the specific example he cites (he actually cited something) were from a very long time ago when QDM was not even something that most people had heard about. Even with all these differences, we shouldn’t even be talking about this because, come on, he is talking about ELK!!!!! Not WHITETAILED DEER!!!!! And to top it all off, he didn’t even talk about all the examples where antler point restrictions have been a huge success. This is absolutely insulting to the readers!!!!! They are smarter than that!
If we are criticizing a regulation for being a “trophy” regulation, let’s look at a regulation that stands a chance at being considered a trophy regulation, such as Earn – a – Buck (EAB), which is exactly what the state he used to be a biologist for (Wisconsin) has used for some time. EAB has been documented by the MN DNR to save more bucks than APR. It is a restriction in which you may have to pass on a 2 ½ or 3 ½ year old buck (you would not have to with APR), allowing it to truly attain “trophy” status. APR’s simply allow some yearlings to live one more year and hunters would not have to get frustrated by not being able to shoot a mature buck. It’s not that EAB is bad. We would actually support it, but it has too much potential for abuse, especially with buck party hunting being allowed. APR’s are just more simple for hunters to follow. They are not even as hard to follow as many people think. Hunting tactics will need to be modified slightly, but that has already started to occur. The new generation of hunter is one that prefers stand hunting to doing deer drives.
McAffery talks about abandoned elk in Colorado. Again, non-residents who have no stake in the land will be more likely to do this. They also are not accustomed to seeing Elk and will often shoot first and look later. Pennsylvania indicated that they were EXTREMELY happy with the low number of mistake kills and abandoned illegal deer. They actually received much less of these than expected and they were not even expecting that many. McAffery seems to have a pattern in these articles to just simply throw numbers out there without proof of their existence, which makes it an opinion article, and not a scientific one. It was MDHA’s duty to make this clear. How can any reputable Biologist compare Colorado Elk data to a Minnesota Deer situation and completely ignore actual applicable data?
McAffery cites some studies in Missouri and Texas that indicate a “high grading” scenario in which only the largest antlered yearlings will be shot. What he doesn’t let the audience know, is that there are also studies that show that the smallest racked yearling bucks end up with the largest racks as mature bucks, indicating that rack size as a yearling has little to do with genetic potential. There is a lot of skepticism that high grading even exists. Even the MN DNR is quick to dismiss the high grading issue as a factor due to the fact that regardless, all deer get half of there genetics from their mother. What I don’t get is that if McAffery really doesn’t care about antlers, why did he even bring up this point?
I don’t know why McAffery puts the word natural in quotes. It’s not like we don’t know what the sex ratio of a natural population is. He gives the readers the impression that nobody knows what a true natural population consists of. This data does exist.
Why would McAffery suggest that the best way to control age and sex structure is to control the number of hunters? We don’t shoot enough does the way it is. Or hasn’t he done that research either? What is more important is that we teach hunters to understand that the very reason they are allowed to hunt is that they are considered the DNR’s “Management Tools”. We need to quit being selfish as hunters and take the DNR seriously. When they say that something has to be done for the good of the herd, we need to understand that they don’t create regulations to frustrate us, they are using the tools at their disposal to control the deer population. If we don’t comply, the DNR will begin to use different tools. The example I use is that if you were using a rock to pound in one nail, it would work. Now if you all of a sudden have 1,000 nails, you would switch to a different tool – likely a hammer. We have to understand that if we don’t become more efficient, we will be replaced with different tools, such as sharp shooters, chemical castration, etc.
I want to see anyone, including McAffery, prove to me that the pre-hunt population sex ratios are 1.5:1. We have never created a certain number but are getting accused of telling everyone that we believe that the doe to buck ratio is as high as 12 to 1. I can guarantee that it is not 1.5 to 1. How can it be? We have never harvested more does than bucks in any harvest year (even though the DNR continues to publish misleading antlerless vs antlered harvests – when you factor button bucks in, which are antlerless deer, we still shoot more bucks). When this happens year in and year out, it is not even mathematically possible to have a ratio of 1.5 does to 1 buck! We are certainly ethical enough not to try guess at this number. We certainly are ethical enough not to report a number that we know is wrong as fact. If he really thinks that this number is correct, I would begin to question his credibility as a biologist.
McAffery asks why a 2:1 ratio is damaging. Who ever said that it would be? Again, if he would have done any research at all, he would know that we are perfectly happy with ratio of 2 or 3 to 1 in adult deer. Even a total ratio like that would not be bad. McAffery continues to use these numbers to try state other arguments. In fact, the majority of this article is based on numbers that we have no intention of achieving or much less, promote (of course he doesn’t know that). Don’t try to shield the readers from the truth. The numbers from Pennsylvania do not even come close to suggest the things that McAffery is insinuating.
McAffery does not base any of his numbers on “real” populations. Does he really believe that a 2 ½, 3 ½ , 4 ½ , etc year old deer will be as easy to harvest as a yearling. All the mathematical equations he does here assumes an equal harvest rate. In fact, he goes as far as saying that mature bucks are even more vulnerable than the yearlings. He has obviously never hunted deer before because if you ask any hunter, I think at least 99% of them will say that it is not easy to take a mature buck. They get old for a reason!
The common theme in these articles is that McAffery continues to provide statistics and numbers without ever citing his sources. In fact, many of them do not even have scientific data to back them up. The articles are simply his opinion. Hunters do understand the consequences of APR’s, and more importantly, they understand the consequences of not having them. Something McAffery clearly does not.
McAffery suggests that we need to first work on getting deer numbers well below the land’s carrying capacity. What is that all about? We are already WELL BELOW the carrying capacity in most areas of the state. We certainly are not above it anywhere. Again, his ignorance of the Minnesota landscape shows.
What McAffery does not seem to understand is that when you use a certain system for a certain amount of time, there comes a point when simply tweaking the current system does not work and total system changes need to occur. The example that I use is that if you were building a house this year and your builder told you that he could do it, but he could only use materials that were available 30 years ago (much like the age of our current deer management system), you could certainly do it, but it would not be optimal. That builder, to be competitive, needs to update his materials and get with the new age of building. He might be in a comfort zone because he knows those other materials very well, but his methods are ancient. I think McAffery needs to get out of his comfort zone. I know he is retired, but maybe he needs to update his thinking to suit the direction deer management is heading.
It is important to remember that Keith McAffery is not from Minnesota and it shows. It is obvious that he does not cite his sources and that much of his material is merely opinion. It is painfully obvious that he does not know what MN QDM is and what their membership stands for. It should concern you that he has made all those assumptions without ever even talking to a member of MN QDM, much less a board member. Has he even visited our web site?
As far as MDHA, I think they really need to poll their members to see what they want. I really think that they are scared as to what they might find if they educate and ask the right questions. I really think that if you educated hunters on every aspect of potential management strategies rather than shield them, they would accept buck restrictions. They are already agreeing to other parts of QDM and many of their members are already practicing the buck restrictions as well. They need to help their members understand that they are management tools.
I would like to again stress that QDM is not trophy deer management. Especially not the QDM in Minnesota. You can see that the restrictions that we promote are far from being able to produce trophy deer.
MDHA has been threatened by the likes of MN QDM, Inc. However, what they need to understand is that we have never been after them or their membership. In fact, if they had responded positively to us when we initially approached them, we would not even exist. Even to this point, we have never targeted them as they have targeted us. In fact, if they simply accepted us, that would be the best way to get rid of us. We are even still willing to work with them. They have turned themselves into “The Big Bully” here and we are finally sick of it and this is why you are getting this letter. MDHA is not representing you as a deer hunter. They are shielding you from the truth and are not representing you in the ways they should. If you are a member, you should demand more out of them. After all, you spend $25 on a membership and all you get is a magazine with articles like this?