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FOREST CLOSURES & DEER MANAGEMENT -- Jim Matthews column 5nov03
Forest closures an opportunity to improve deer management
Outdoor News Service Due to the massive forest fires across Southern California the past two weeks, two of the four national forests in this region remain closed to public access. This will again effectively eliminate a portion -- and many argue the best part of the deer hunting season in this region.
While all of the forests had remained open this year right into late October after rethinking policies that effectively ended deer hunting last year, as of Wednesday this week, the Angeles and Cleveland national forest were closed to all public access. The San Bernardino announced it would be opening a portion of the forest on Friday (with a map of the open areas available at most ranger stations), and the Los Padres National Forest remained open to the public except in immediate fire areas that were still burning -- and that placed only the Sespe Wilderness off limits early this week.
The decision to close the forest and the triggering mechanisms were well known this year and well publicized. In the San Bernardino National Forest, hunters were even given special access when other recreational users were locked out during this drought and extreme fire danger, and the Los Padres -- true to its form -- has remained open again this year even with the fire threats. In talking with staff from the different forests, it looked unlikely that the Cleveland or Angeles forests would reopen before the end of the local deer seasons in this region, even with more rains, but hunters should check with the Forest Service before assuming their favorite hunting areas are open or closed, including in the Los Padres and San Bernardino.
The numbers for the local forests are as follows: Cleveland National Forest (858) 673-6180, San Bernardino National Forest (909) 383-5588, Angeles National Forest (626) 574-1613, and the Los Padres National Forest (805) 968-6640. Local ranger stations in each forest should also have information about their immediate area. If, as expected, the forests will continue to be closed, it gives us a unique opportunity to rethink our deer management program and manage all, or at least a portion, of these areas differently. Extreme heat the early part of our deer season kept hunter success well below normal; so this marks the second year in a row of low or no harvest in most popular deer hunting areas in Southern California.
We'll almost certainly have more older age class bucks than we've had in decades. Deer losses in fire areas, especially considering the size of some of the fires, complicate the picture, but the burns mostly will benefit our deer herds with improved forage, and numbers should bounce back quickly. For hunters, the reality is pretty simple: the DFG could move one or more zones in these closed areas into a quality deer management program like those that are sweeping through the South and East.
By limiting harvest to older age class bucks and teaching hunters to identify these deer, the health of the herd improves. There are higher buck-to-doe ratios, and harvest of older deer matches the harvest figures before the changes were instituted -- and hunters are generally more pleased because they see more bucks and shoot bigger deer. (We could also move our hunts post-rut into December or January, removing them completely out of potential fire closures.) I've been hunting on the Tejon Ranch since I was a kid. Since the ranch has gone to a quality deer management program, the average size of the bucks we see and shoot are now dramatically bigger than anything I ever remember seeing when I was young.
There are a lot of deer taken on the 200,000-plus acre ranch, it's just that now they are two or three or four years older than before. The same thing could happen on public lands, and with the fire closures we have a jump-start on the program. I'd like to see at least D14 managed for quality deer. The San Bernardino Mountains have always produced some of the best bucks on the California mule deer subspecies taken each year in the state, especially for hunters who are willing to get off the roads and into some of the back country and wilderness areas in the zone.
A quality management program here, especially with the fires we've had the past several years that have rejuvenated forest areas and the two years of closures, would make it a likely candidate for responding quickly to a new regulation. There'd be a lot of 4x4s taken in this zone in two or three years with new rules. But quality deer management would benefit all of our deer zones in this region. Now is the time to implement them. The DFG needs to step to the plate on this issue and perhaps Forest Service wildlife personnel need to ask the DFG to look at a quality deer management program for their area.
Forest closures an opportunity to improve deer management
Outdoor News Service Due to the massive forest fires across Southern California the past two weeks, two of the four national forests in this region remain closed to public access. This will again effectively eliminate a portion -- and many argue the best part of the deer hunting season in this region.
While all of the forests had remained open this year right into late October after rethinking policies that effectively ended deer hunting last year, as of Wednesday this week, the Angeles and Cleveland national forest were closed to all public access. The San Bernardino announced it would be opening a portion of the forest on Friday (with a map of the open areas available at most ranger stations), and the Los Padres National Forest remained open to the public except in immediate fire areas that were still burning -- and that placed only the Sespe Wilderness off limits early this week.
The decision to close the forest and the triggering mechanisms were well known this year and well publicized. In the San Bernardino National Forest, hunters were even given special access when other recreational users were locked out during this drought and extreme fire danger, and the Los Padres -- true to its form -- has remained open again this year even with the fire threats. In talking with staff from the different forests, it looked unlikely that the Cleveland or Angeles forests would reopen before the end of the local deer seasons in this region, even with more rains, but hunters should check with the Forest Service before assuming their favorite hunting areas are open or closed, including in the Los Padres and San Bernardino.
The numbers for the local forests are as follows: Cleveland National Forest (858) 673-6180, San Bernardino National Forest (909) 383-5588, Angeles National Forest (626) 574-1613, and the Los Padres National Forest (805) 968-6640. Local ranger stations in each forest should also have information about their immediate area. If, as expected, the forests will continue to be closed, it gives us a unique opportunity to rethink our deer management program and manage all, or at least a portion, of these areas differently. Extreme heat the early part of our deer season kept hunter success well below normal; so this marks the second year in a row of low or no harvest in most popular deer hunting areas in Southern California.
We'll almost certainly have more older age class bucks than we've had in decades. Deer losses in fire areas, especially considering the size of some of the fires, complicate the picture, but the burns mostly will benefit our deer herds with improved forage, and numbers should bounce back quickly. For hunters, the reality is pretty simple: the DFG could move one or more zones in these closed areas into a quality deer management program like those that are sweeping through the South and East.
By limiting harvest to older age class bucks and teaching hunters to identify these deer, the health of the herd improves. There are higher buck-to-doe ratios, and harvest of older deer matches the harvest figures before the changes were instituted -- and hunters are generally more pleased because they see more bucks and shoot bigger deer. (We could also move our hunts post-rut into December or January, removing them completely out of potential fire closures.) I've been hunting on the Tejon Ranch since I was a kid. Since the ranch has gone to a quality deer management program, the average size of the bucks we see and shoot are now dramatically bigger than anything I ever remember seeing when I was young.
There are a lot of deer taken on the 200,000-plus acre ranch, it's just that now they are two or three or four years older than before. The same thing could happen on public lands, and with the fire closures we have a jump-start on the program. I'd like to see at least D14 managed for quality deer. The San Bernardino Mountains have always produced some of the best bucks on the California mule deer subspecies taken each year in the state, especially for hunters who are willing to get off the roads and into some of the back country and wilderness areas in the zone.
A quality management program here, especially with the fires we've had the past several years that have rejuvenated forest areas and the two years of closures, would make it a likely candidate for responding quickly to a new regulation. There'd be a lot of 4x4s taken in this zone in two or three years with new rules. But quality deer management would benefit all of our deer zones in this region. Now is the time to implement them. The DFG needs to step to the plate on this issue and perhaps Forest Service wildlife personnel need to ask the DFG to look at a quality deer management program for their area.
