It’s always interesting to read post or have discussions about ones philosophy on wildlife management.
It seems to me that rarely is there agreement, and that it is easy to contradict what is being done.

Example: shoot every coyote that you see, they are fawn killers.
Contradiction: the female coyote will have larger litters when the population is thinned therefore increasing the coyote population.

Shoot roadrunners they eat all the baby quail.
Don’t shoot roadrunners they eat snakes, and they are cool to have around


Can y’all think of anymore management practices and/or contradictions to that practice?


I may be getting old and soft. Many of these “philosophies” sound like reasons to go out and shoot stuff. This is fine, but may be a reason why there is so much contradiction.

Shoot all spikes: don't shoot spikes

Shoot does before the rut: shoot doe after the rut

Shoot all predators: shoot no predators

I believe in killing every varmint seen. They Can’t have larger litters if they’re dead. Road runners and hawks are cool to watch and someone somewhere decided it should be against the law to kill them, no matter what they do to the quail population. It’s a great management practice not to kill them with a 22-250.

I believe a lot of times, like the when to shoot does or spikes, both sides of the road will end up in the exact same spot

Elimination to extinction would be a management practice, I guess.
But then we would get into the “ how does this varmint contribute to the environment “ question.

The best time to kill a doe is when you have time to process her.

You can’t shoot doe’s! That’s the baby makers.

Quail are a good example. Lots of research was done to figure out why the population was so low.
It was fire ants, mites, feral hogs, 7 year cycle, etc.

Turned out it was water!

One of the new great debates is CWD.

Lots of debate on the cause. I hear it due to over population issues or high fence operations bringing in sick animals.

It’s seldom the philosophy that’s flawed, it’s the implementation and actual practice that’s flawed

Coyotes are a perfect example, you can very well limit coyote population to extremely low levels, but you arent going to accomplish it by only shooting them when you see them.

Spike harvest is similar, no point in occasional spike harvest. Your are either all in and willing to sacrifice tags to accomplish the repeated year after year after year culling or. It.

CWD walked across the border in the most sparsely populated counties in TX, guess both those theories are semi wrong

Agree Bobo. The philosophy isn’t the problem it’s the implementation of the philosophy.

It does become interesting though when there are two different philosophies being implemented.

This pretty much sums up what I find interesting. When there are two contrasting philosophies and conflict. Disagreement occurs.

I think many practices are situational, and specific to location. People hear something and try to implement on their place.

Ex. What’s works in east Texas may not work in West Texas.

So East Texas boys don’t bring your East Texas AR stuff out here.

So your saying overpopulation will not result in migration?

I find it interesting that one will say that coyotes must be killed as they kill fawns then cull a truck load of deer due to over population in the given area. Also, please explain to me the correct way/philosophy to manage wild hog populations, they seem to have overrun our place in East Texas.

Not a herd in Texas that has a specific migration. There are herds/deer with larger home areas that overlap.

Dispersal isn’t migration

More of ability to be biased on culling. Yotes/wolves etc aren’t biased they are opportunistic

Very few ranches/hunters have the means to specifically influence genetics via a gun. Probably less then 5% if that

Culling a two year old so you don’t see it for the next 6 years is a change perception not significantly changes genetics.

Good stuff garyrapp! I’m with you. I will only speak for myself and say I shoot coyotes because I like to. I had a coyote eat a dog of mine, so I shoot them on sight. They come in to a call and it’s year round fun. As far as a management practice to increase the population of deer, I’m out on that.

Hogs are a good one also. I’m out on the poison. I think there are to many risk. I personally think trapping and year around hunting will help LOCALLY. I freakin love shooting hogs! If I farmed or had large acreage I would hire a helicopter and put the hurt on them.

People preach killing coyotes/predators to save the fawns. We have an incredible coyote population, but we are poor coyote killers. Set traps but don't typically get to run them more than a day or two in a row, have tired calling some but not very successful and don't have much time to devote to it. We see coyotes all the time just blip across a sendero, constantly on the cameras and fresh scat and tracks everywhere all the time. Put a 200 pound hog on the gut pile and in the morning there is nothing but a little hair and some torn up dirt left.

We also have a strong fawn crop, see twins every year, good recruitment, kill a bunch of does for our acreage every year and the population keeps on keeping on. We have no livestock, lots of native brush and thick tall grass. Great fawning cover.

Are we really being biased? I think that we think we are but in reality we can not see the genotype of the animals that we are harvesting. In reality we are guessing.

Depends on the area. Where I go on an anterless hunt every January, we kill as many does as we feel like processing. But, there are an overabundance of deer there. Where my place is, the deer population is much lower per section of land. I never kill does. And, in 6 years, I haven't seen a buck big enough for me to justify killing it. They won't get big, if they get killed when they're small.

No matter where I hunt, I shoot every coyote and hog I see, unless the land owner says otherwise. And on my land, I add armadillos to the list.

I was thinking more about about Muledeer in New Mexico , Colorado where there is CWD.. Not so much a young buck looking for his own territory.

Preach it, brother.

Agree 100% on all counts. I also kill every rattlesnake I see. Fact is by conventional hunting methods we will never make much of a difference in the coyote, hog, or rattler population, especially hogs. I see no way to control the hog population short of poison.

Culling does not mean genetic influence for most management plans, it simply mean future resource allocation. Basically determining what goes on to live another year to utilize the landscape , for whatever reason(age,sex, score, config, etc). In reality it is a guess but an educated guess built off percentages that allow for discretion.

Yote/wolf/dog kills strictly off opportunity. If hunters did that, be a short season