cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Deer that Showed Up Yesterday I decided to name the toad 'Squeak.' Harry and I spent about half an hour wandering around the front yard, turning over rocks and such in search of invertebrates for Squeak to eat. I buried a tupperware container level with the surface of the soil in Squeak's terrarium so he can have a bigger pool of water to crawl into if he wants. We have a deer that has been showing up out back lately. Which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, we have fun watching him and its nice to know that there is this promising buck hanging out in easy range come deer season. On the other hand, he will be a vector for ticks. And he has been inside of the fence, which is a first. I figure him to be either a yearling or a 2 year old buck based on the shape of his head and the size and shape of his neck and shoulders. He will be stunning if I let him go for another season or two. The bucks in my area (I am referring to an area of about 5 square miles here) have the genetic characteristic of very wide antlers with very thick main beams that stretch out at least 5 inches almost sideways past the ears before curving upward in a shape which is somewhat lyre-like, if it was a very broad lyre. This buck has those excellent genetics written all over him. I do not think of myself as a trophy hunter. I am a subsistence hunter focused on meat. However, I have made a point these last 3 years of only shooting does and spikes at my place. The intended result is a more stable population with a doe to buck ratio of around 50/50 or perhaps as much as 40/60. This is desireable because more bucks versus does means a lower number of fawns born on the same area of land each year with a higher infant survival rate. This also reduces the impact of the sudden need for X new deer to start competing for the same amount of food with the adult deer in the summer and fall. With, say, 4 new fawns per square mile rather than 6, they don't end up gnawing every edible piece of vegetation down to the ground. So there is more food per individual deer, meaning that the deer are healthier and happier and will grow bigger (with more meat per deer for me to eat). It's a whole thing I'm doing. Point is, that in the process of managing the ecosystem in this way, a side-effect is that an unusually high number of trophy quality bucks have developed here. Because they live longer than they usually would, and the few bucks I have been killing were 'spikes' with such tiny antlers that they could easily be mistaken for does. Thus I have tended to remove genetic material for bucks with small antlers. It is evolution in action, and remarkably quick action at that. So here are all of these great big bucks that I have running around, with the big antler genes that I have encouraged to dominate, and large bodies that benefited from the excellent early nutrition resulting from low annual birth rates. I feel that I am entitled to select one to harvest this year. This guy out back is going to be at least a 6 pointer this year, maybe a 7 or 8 pointer. It is hard to tell for sure right now, since the antlers are still in velvet and growing. I think he has good genes so part of me is thinking that I should give him at least one more year to pass them on. Meanwhile, the kids love looking at it out the window and are begging me to "shoot it and make deer steak." 9:46 a.m. - 2009-06-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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