Cull Hunt

[adgunner]

With less than a month to go before our trip to RSA, I thought i would head out to a local farm here in Ontario, Canada and get some hunting practice in. A local farmer had applied for and received tags to cull deer from his property due to crop damage. We happily obliged and set up for a morning hunt and quickly culled the first two offenders in the field (a pair of bucks). The tags were for either sex. As it was really hot we decided to use a local butcher to get them cooled down and were shocked to see that the reaction was that they didn't want to deal with us and were practically comparing us to poachers even after we showed our government licenses and tags. Oh well, we did the butchering ourselves and sat down to some fine tenderloins that evening. Owning some land myself i fully understand the need to control the herd to preserve crops, but after talking to some hunters (i suspect jealous ones) they suggested upping the quotas for the hunting seasons. I tried to defend our position by stating this was a localized problem and would be difficult to regulate thru hunting tags in the regular season. Has anyone else ran into this attitude when cull/cropping hunting?

 

[enysse]

All the time, it's a pretty hot topic here in Wisconsin. My honest opinion, is I'm against the crop damage stuff and I grew up on huge farm. It's a bunch of BS, if there where that many deer that fall, then why didn't they shoot more then. And some farmers, any deer, turkey, raccoon...etc. is a problem. And some farmer don't want people on there land but they want the payments for damage. I think it's a farmer problem and if they have too many deer....during deer season they should remove them. Besides, the deer right now are thin and lean...not much to look at or eat. Morally and ethically you did nothing wrong, but you would have a hard time finding too many sportsman supporting you shooting two buck in June.

 

[BRICKBURN]

I can imagine culling a few deer got some looks and bad attitude.
The butcher probably never got his deer last year and is still PO'd.

Culling hunts are a very hot topic and there are plenty of folks who are not in favour.

 

[adgunner]

Enysse, Interesting thoughts, the farmer who we culled for after talking to him would fit into the category of removing everything if he could. He does invite almost anyone onto his land to shoot deer, which just turns into a mess during the regular two week gun season. I do beleive this is going to become an even hotter topic as the crop damage insurance becomes even more difficult to obtain. I actually planted a three acre food plot on my land in the hopes that i could keep them out of my front soy field a little bit, so far that has been a flop. I have never used cull hunting on my land, but have targetted does and had quite a few friends over during the early bow season. How about Africa, how are crop damaging species handled?

 

[JamesJ]

I've done quite a bit here in Texas, I think it all depends on what side of the fence you are on. People who are intelligent and informed know culling is the right thing to do when protecting the health of the herd. Fools with WWF and Peta stickers on their car would rather see them starve and die before letting someone shoot them.