Dentry: Plenty of deer create positive choices
Published September 19, 2006 at midnight
It should come as little surprise, during an era of mule deer plenty, that at least one of Colorado's most celebrated big-game hunting grounds is fixing to aim higher.
Problem is, "aiming higher" means different things to different people, particularly in the Gunnison Basin, where everyone talks about big bucks and hefty gains in the deer population.
If you have lots of deer and a greater percentage of bucks, should you hold off and manage for big heads or generously dole out buck licenses so more people can get out and hunt more often?
Not everyone is a trophy hunter. Some would rather hunt every year or so instead of waiting on a cold preference-point bench for deer to grow oversized hat racks.
"There are different points of view," said Brandon Diamond, biologist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife in Gunnison.
As chief wild critter manager for the famed mountain valley, Diamond is in the enviable, but not uncomplicated, position of having to weigh science and public opinion and come up with hunting recommendations for five key game management units in 2007.
"Some folks don't mind waiting extended periods of time if they have an opportunity for a trophy deer at the end of that wait," said Diamond, who has been poring over public comments for several weeks.
"Then there are those who would rather hunt on a more regular basis and aren't so worried about antler size. It's a matter of quality versus opportunity, and we'd like to strike a balance."
The game units are 54, 55, 551, 66 and 67. Everyone who lives in, hunts in or has passed through the area has been raving about lots of deer, especially "big bucks."
The wealth has been widespread in Colorado since deer hunting went all-limited in 1999. Herds have grown, bucks are in high clover and numbers of buck and either-sex deer hunting license numbers have crept up accordingly.
Some areas in western Colorado, including the Gunnison Basin, have been especially favored - enough that biologists are considering amending their herd objectives and buck-to-doe ratio objectives.
In 2001, the wildlife division set an objective for the five Gunnison Basin game units at 35 bucks per 100 does. But since then, all five units have soared well over objective, to 4 5/100 or higher.
"There has been some interest expressed in not going back down to 3 5/100," Diamond said.
Shooting for a higher buck/doe objective would result in fewer buck licenses each year, but more mature bucks in the field for trophy hunters who manage to draw a license. A lower buck/doe objective would result in more buck licenses to go around.
Many Gunnison-area residents feel the division has established a winning strategy for deer and that it should stick with present plans. But a vocal contingent of deer hunters wants to raise the buck/doe objective to let more bucks grow older.
This year, buck and either-sex deer hunting was limited to 730 licenses in unit 54, 795 licenses in units 55 and 551 combined, and 485 licenses in units 66 and 67 taken together. Diamond said there were 23,000 deer in the basin after the 2005 hunting seasons.
"Over the last three years or so, we have slowly been increasing license numbers due to increasing deer populations, but also due to burgeoning buck/doe ratios," he said.
It remains to be seen whether buck license numbers will climb even more so more hunters might share the unprecedented wealth, whether they should be held in check while big bucks grow even bigger antlers, or something in between.
Monday is the deadline for submitting comments to: Brandon Diamond, CDOW, 300 New York Ave., Gunnison, CO 81230. Draft plans for the 2007 hunting seasons will go to the Colorado Wildlife Commission in November.
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