Hunting in Austria a few years ago, I was offered the opportunity to help with some culling of red deer. They manage their populations very carefully, and needed to take about 30 deer off the property. What I found very odd at first was that I was told that I could shoot any spike bucks I saw or fawns, but no mature does or older bucks.
Growing up in Minnesota, getting a doe permit was a big deal. In many years, seeing a legal buck was a bit of a rarity. Getting a doe permit pretty much guaranteed you a deer. When filling a doe permit, we always tried to shoot the biggest doe we could find to get the most meat. These were often does with fawns.
When I asked them about shooting fawns and not mature does, it was kind of an “ah ha” moment for me. They told me that less than 50% of the fawns survive the winter, whereas mature does are the deer in the herd most likely to survive the winter. Further, shooting a mature doe with fawns made it much less likely that her fawns would survive as well. So by shooting a mature doe, you not only killed any fawns she was carrying, you also made it likely that her current fawns wouldn’t survive. The impact to taking that one mature doe could actually lead to the death of four or five deer. By shooting a fawn, you took one animal, and didn’t negatively impact the survival of any others. Leaving the mature does was the best insurance policy against a hard winter really damaging a herd.
I always thought that shooting fawns was not good deer management, as you often kill young bucks. But their reasoning seemed to make sense to me. Any thoughts on this?
