My Last Words, by Tomas Young

Compared with the natural woods, there is.

Like I care what you believe - but ok, third try at getting you to clarify was the charm.

The browse lines I refer to are mostly the ones visible from the highways, such as 65 from Minneapolis to Cambridge or 169 from Shakopee to north of Mille Lacs, or 23 across from 169 to 35, or all along 35. You can also view the deer exclosures in Itasca State Park, the wintering groves of cedars in that Park, and the link to the deer exclosure I posted above. They vary year by year, and are currently less visible than three years ago - I credit the DNR, with a nod to the hard winter. I've been driving these roads, and many other smaller, for years now - the damage from deer has been for years completely obvious, flagrant, not even close to a judgment call. Not just me - here: https://www.facebook.com/96455352327/posts/10152447335607328 And no, it's not due to yarding cattle - cattle are fenced in, there are fences in the scenery when cattle are involved.

Deer exclosures are expensive. They are not installed at whim, but in response to serious browsing problems and landscape degradation. There are many of them in MN, for good reason.

A local park I wander in on occasion (prairie restoration curiosity, moths and such) - on the Rum River across from St Michael, in the Three Rivers system - has had much less browse damage over the years than these private woods and roadways and such. One reason for that is the longstanding policy of stepping hard on the wintering deer herd there, using a habitat model and bow hunting permits.

And you can read what the deer hunters think of this, here: http://mndeerhunters.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/May2014TomLandwehrLtrReDeerMgtHuntingRegs.pdf Notice:
1) there are too few deer, the DNR should be boosting their numbers
2) large quantities of feed were required to get the current population through last winter in good shape - natural browse being far from adequate, for the number of deer needing to be fed.

So the hell with them. Deer historically lived in a band of deciduous forest about a hundred miles wide in the southeast narrowing to the St Croix River watershed in the north. Anywhere else, they're as parasitic on human infrastructure and landscape modifications as a Norway rat.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

oh yeah... I had nearly forgotten about you.

BTW I am relatively familiar with 65
Google maps
Lat/lon: 45.463058 , -93.234983

Zoom in all the way then go to street view. Image date 2011 (

Dead deer on east (right side) so we know they are there! Please show me these browse lines you so adamantly insist exist.

As far as where deer lived historically - link please.

QUOTE from wikipedia (truncated)
The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), also known as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia...
Some taxonomists have attempted to separate white-tailed deer into a host of subspecies, based largely in morphological differences. Genetic studies,[clarification needed] however, suggest fewer subspecies within the animal's range, as compared to the 30 to 40 subspecies that some scientists described in the last century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Here's a map showing the northern, but not the western, boundary of the deer herd in MN a century and a half ago (there were no deer in the caribou range). See page 42: http://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/rangifer/article/viewFile/319/310.

The western boundary was the prairie (and the 40 degree line) which deer cannot live in unless humans provide tree cover and browse and predator reduction.

The human mediated expansion of the deer range drove the caribou north, by disease (deer carry brainworm lethal to caribou) and predation (the deer support a higher wolf population, which destroys caribou reproduction due to vulnerability at calving time). Deer in modern times also spread Lymes disease and other tick-borne diseases, due to their hosting the black-legged (or "dcer") tick - an unusually diseased arthropod, from a human's pov.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

think venison

 

Thats a map of caribou not deer. An interesting read but not related to what I asked of you. Show me the browse lines. I even helped you along giving you lat/lon which could be copy/pasted into google maps to show these offensive deer browse lines you claim exist and are obvious. But you didnt.

http://explorer.natureserve.org/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Odocoileus virginianus

Again I show you the distribution of white tailed deer.

As far as humans providing trees cover and browse, have you ever spent time in the dakotas/montana? Every river is lined with trees and browse. That is the normal condition.

O. v. borealis – northern (woodland) white-tailed deer (the largest and darkest white-tailed deer)
O. v. couesi – Coues white-tailed deer, Arizona white-tailed deer, or fantail deer
O. v. dakotensis – Dakota white-tailed deer or Northern Plains white-tailed deer (most northerly distribution, rivals the northern white-tailed deer in size)
O. v. idahoensis – white-tailed deer (western Canada, Idaho, eastern Washington)
O. v. macrourus – Kansas white-tailed deer
O. v. ochrourus – (tawny) northwest white-tailed deer or northern Rocky Mountains white-tailed deer
O. v. seminolus – Florida white-tailed deer
O. v. texanus – Texas white-tailed deer

The white-tailed deer species has tremendous genetic variation and is adaptable to several environments.

Interesting read from 1913:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13249/13249-h/13249-h.htm

Machine gun hunting and hummingbird skins for .02 each.

And here is a quote from the above link that reminds me of your position:

There are several species of birds that may at once be put under sentence of death for their destructiveness of useful birds, without any extenuating circumstances worth mentioning. Four of these are Cooper's Hawk, the Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Pigeon Hawk and Duck Hawk.

 

one more tag to fill
and the freezer will be full
and we dine on rich red meat
....
muzzle loading time, and the .50 lies loaded and ready, awaiting the opportunity.

 

It shows the northern limits of the deer range in Minnesota, in general and easily understood terms - the southern limit of the caribou range. That is explained in the text adjacent.

That's the current distribution, and it is not detailed enough to show the State range in question - there were some deer in MN, historically, but few and sparse and localized.

And that's where whitetails belong in MN - the lower Mississippi and Saint Croix river valleys, scattered along the river banks and bluff terrain. Everywhere else, they are parasitic on human landscape degradation and human/disease elimination of competition/predation.

It's about exterminating unwanted species in favor of others. That's your position, not mine. The effective removal from Minnesota of the caribou, elk, bison, moose, wolves, grizzly bears, most black bears, and big cats; the landscape modification and degradation necessary; and the goal-oriented regulation of hunting etc; all in favor of maximizing the population of imported semi-domesticated concentrations of whitetail deer, is your position. Not mine.

I'm like the islander who wants the disease carrying tick ridden overpopulating imported rats removed so the rest of the place can flourish again. To the extent possible given the new climate and the new worms etc, I want the flora and fauna of the place maintained and managed for its own good - not ruined for the once yearly entertainment of a bunch of suburban yahoos who can't name the trees in their front yards.

 

Again you avoid showing me these obvious browse lines across central MN.

NO. The Map Is The Caribou Range. You want to believe that white tail have always lived in a limited area of MN but that is simply untrue.

From the gutenburg link posted earlier (skipped parts about eastern range of white tails).

It is said that in 1911, 11,000 deer were killed in Montana, all in the western part of the state, seventy per cent of which were white-tails. The deep snows and extreme cold of a long and unusually severe winter drove the hungry deer down out of the mountains into the settlements, where the ranchmen joyously slaughtered them. The destruction around Kalispell was described by Harry P. Stanford as "sickening."

Northern Ontario, Quebec, Labrador And Newfoundland , inhabited by moose, woodland caribou, white-tailed deer and black bear.

British Columbia , inhabited by a magnificent big-game fauna embracing the moose, elk, caribou of two species, white sheep, black sheep, big-horn sheep, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, grizzly, black and inland white bears.

Northern Minnesota : Deer and moose.

Northern Michigan And Wisconsin : White-tailed deer.

Western And Southwestern Montana : Elk in season, mule and white-tail deer; no sheep that it would be right to kill.

Northwestern Montana : Mule and white-tailed deer, only. No sheep, bear, moose, elk or antelope to kill!

Wyoming, East Of Yellowstone Park : A few elk, by migration from the Park; a few deer, and bear of two species.

Northern Woods Of Ontario And Quebec : Moose; deer.

Lieut.-Col. L.M. Brett, U.S.A., Superintendent of the Yellowstone Park advises me (July 29, 1912) that the wild big game in the Yellowstone Park in the summer of 1912, is as shown below, based on actual counts and estimates of the Park scouts, and particularly Scout McBride. "The estimates of buffalo, elk, antelope, deer, sheep and bear are based on actual counts, or very close observations, and are pretty nearly correct." (Col. Brett).

Mule Deer 400
White-tailed Deer 100

Glacier Park, Montana. ..Its leading citizens are white mountain goats, mountain sheep, moose, mule deer and white-tailed deer,

End snippets from book

The range is pretty much the same as the natureserve map.

And finally from the gutenburg book linked earlier:

Dr. Pierce has introduced the Indian sambar deer and Japanese sika deer (Cervus sika), both of which are doing well. We are watching the progress of those big sambar deer with very keen interest, and it is to be recorded that already that species has crossed with the Louisiana white-tailed deer.

I have little doubt that 'brain worm' will trace the introduction of this disease to the USA via immigration (infected stock). Similar to Lymes:

In 2012, a team of researchers claimed that the 5,300-year-old mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman, discovered along the Austria-Italy border in 1991, had contracted Lyme.

Some claim that the disease first appeared in Germany in the 1880s or France in the 1920s; others say it took root in the U.S. around the time of the Great Depression.

http://www.livescience.com/18704-oldest-case-lyme-disease-spotted-iceman-mummy.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...sease-borrelia-burgdorferi-deer-tick-science/

 

It is simply true. The map shows where caribou used to live, and caribou are excluded by whitetail deer, then and now - read the article.

Whitetail deer were localized and limited in Minnesota until the advent of European agriculture and logging. There was little suitable habitat for them. They do not do well in either tallgrass or shortgrass prairie, mature pine forests, oak savannah, etc. The demise of these landscapes was critical for their spread - along with the elimination of effective predation, wildfire, and (recently) severe winters.

They were of course present, especially in the southeastern river valleys. They were and are present in many places with suitable habitats. So?

What exactly are you trying to argue here? Notice that the political power of hunters is in conflict with the people who want to restore original landscapes - the ideal of maximizing deer numbers directly conflicts with the desire to restore pine forests and prairie and savannah landscapes in Minnesota.

 

Iceaura quotes from thread:

So then you introduce caribou range as evidence. You make the above claims and cannot substantiate them so you move the goalposts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_parallel_north

Now a bit of contrary evidence from N. Dakota.

Along the Missouri River bottoms, however, they were so numerous in the timber and lake regions that their numbers were often commented upon by Lewis and Clark (1893, p. 174, 233, 237) on their expedition up the river in 1804-5. On October 20, 1804, on the great flats just below the present site of Bismarck, great numbers of deer were reported. At Fort Mandan and old Fort Clark, these deer furnished an important part of the winter's food supply of the expedition as it wintered among the Indians. On one trip a hunting party brought in 40 deer, 16 elk, and 3 buffalo. On another trip a few miles down the river, February 21, 1805, Lewis returned with 3,000 pounds of meat, having killed 36 deer, 14 elk, and a wolf. Many deer were mentioned at other localities along the river on the way to Fort Union (Buford).

Theodore Roosevelt (1900a, p. 172), in writing of his ranch life along the Little Missouri in the early eighties, says [p.40] that when the cattle were first driven onto the northern plains the white-tailed deer were the least plentiful and the least sought after of all large game and that they had held their own as none of the others had begun to do. In certain localities they were more common than any other kind of game and in many places were more so than all other kinds put together. Ranchmen along the Powder River, for instance, had to content themselves with white-tailed venison, unless they made long trips back into the hills, and the same was becoming true along the Little Missouri. Skin and meat hunters found this deer the most difficult to hunt and the least remunerative to the hunter, and therefore only turned their attention to it when nothing else was left to hunt. In Roosevelt's long and interesting account of the habits and methods of hunting these deer he gives a good picture of their former abundance and rapid disappearance after other more easily obtained game had vanished, and he pays a well-merited tribute to the cunning and sagacity of the animals in protecting themselves, even where the country became well settled.

http://library.ndsu.edu/exhibits/text/fauna/part2a.html

I post this to further support my position that white tails lived All over the place regardless of what you've been lead to believe. Note they mention NW minnesota as a source for deer coming back into n. dakota (after being pushed out by settlers)

Additionally, heres a link to the former white pine forested area you lament so.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I post the above to show White pine and white tailed deer co-existed in the eastern US.

Myth: Pure white pine forests are a common occurrence in Minnesota.

Fact:
Although relatively pure white pine forests exist in Minnesota, this species is more commonly associated with other forest types. In fact, inventory statistics show that of the white pine present in Minnesota more than 72 percent exist in other forest types such as aspen, jack pine, and red pine.1 In fact white pine occurs in 23 forest types.2 Statistics also show that white pine is present on nearly 1,000,000 acres in Minnesota. This represents an increase of nearly 17,000 acres over the 1977 acreage with a white pine component.

http://minnesotaforests.com/lookingfor/forestfacts/whitepine.aspx

Slaughter all the white tailed deer and you still have a conundrum.

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/Volume_1/pinus/strobus.htm

Plus you cannot convince me via your extreme position (not that much removed from wolves are killing all the deer i.e. deer are killing all the white pine) when I grew up and continue to wander forests of white pine often following deer trails to do it. As I pointed out in an earlier post, forestry management tends to gauge success/failure on the potential for logging profits. And it is not in the MN Nat. Resources best interest to be funded mostly from the sales of those resources.

 

Yep. Nice clear line, solid evidence of an absence - always a difficult thing to substantiate.

You posted evidence of deer populations along certain river bottoms in North Dakota, in complete agreement with my posting of deer populations confined to certain river bottoms and associated deciduous woodlands (the same drainage, actually: Mississippi/Missouri) in Minnesota. How is that "contradictory"?

Yep. Likewise in most of Minnesota

In complete agreement with my posting: whitetails in most of Minnesota (and similar areas in the Dakotas) are dependent on human landscape changes and invasive in most of Minnesota (I specified several above - you can check off the agreements with common pioneer rancher practices at your leisure), and whitetail deer are not desirable game compared with what they have replaced over most of Minnesota.

They had some range overlap, as species. There were white pines in the forest of the upper Saint Croix river valley in MN, that I specified as among the limited areas of whitetail population in MN earlier, for example. So? What is this "pure white pine forest" stuff supposed to be in support of?

Are you contending that whitetail deer were prevalent, anywhere near as common as they are now, throughout Minnesota, in the pine forest and shortgrass prairie and tallgrass prairie and oak savannah and spruce peatlands and so forth that together made up most of the State's landscape, three hundred years ago?

Obviously I have been unclear somewhere. Perhaps you could quote where I have posted that deer are killing all the white pines, and I can correct my obviously badly misleading rhetoric.

I have posted that deer populations suppress white pine reproduction, by browsing the seedlings in winter - artificially heavy deer populations (too many deer for the locale), as hunters prefer, can (often do) prevent it entirely. Was that what i need to clarify?

Rereading, I see a large problem with the entire post - in redress, then, a reminder of the thread topic, and a dropping of the topic of DNR habitat models:

We have a human habitat to consider, and far more consequential management decisions - with need for defiance of them, even prosecution of them - relevant to deer hunters.

 

No. What you posted was this:

North dakota is both Prairie and above the 40th. Even if you meant the 45th, its still north. But now that I have posted info from Lewis and Clark expedition, you cannot fall back on settlement/logging providing the access and predator reduction so you move the goalposts again.

I already posted info about Northern MN Deer. Deer in Yellowstone. Deer in Glacier. Deer slaughter in Kalispell. And now a snippet from Breckenridge who wrote about MN wildlife (of course pieced together).

"The picture of the white-tailed deer is in direct contrast to those of the other large hoofed animals. This fine game animal was abundant originally throughout the forests of southern, central, and western Minnesota.

In 1841 Sibley reported that an Indian band on a winter hunt in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa took two thousand deer.

Schoolcraft (discoverer of origin of Mississippi) found deer common in the Lake Itasca (origin of Mississippi) area in 1832."

You've made the claim that deer were thinly distributed in MN and havent backed that up with links. When I posted contrary info, you claimed it was after logging. You've made claims of browse damage supposedly plain to see along hwy 65 but cannot produce any evidence even when Handed the means. You introduce caribou maps in NE MN as though that has any resemblance to a map of white tailed deer range.

You've claimed deer browsing is an issue for white pine regeneration and I posted a map of the original White pine forests and clearly show they and the deer co-existed. And I offered info on 17,000 acres of white pine added inspite of all the deer.

Nothing makes you happy.

 

The deer did not live on the prairie. They lived along the river bottoms. You quoted and linked to plenty of supporting evidence of that yourself, including the names of the particular rivers and references to the misfortune of the local ranchers who had no better game handy.

The western boundary of the deer range in MN was the prairie edge, because the western part of the State was mostly prairie and deer don't live on prairies. Deer do not thrive on grass, OK? This isn't rocket science.

There are some river bottoms with woodland, and some deer were found in them in the old days - nothing like now, with human farms and human woodlots instead of prairie and plenty of browse and no competitors or predators.

I have backed it up with a map and several references. So have you. You don't read your own links, let alone mine.

That's why it wasn't "contrary" info - it agreed perfectly with my observation that deer in Minnesota are mostly parasitic on human landscape modification. As Roosevelt noted in your link, the deer moved in after the ranchers brought in cattle and planted windbreaks and broke the sod for farming and suppressed the wildfires - and killed off everything else, including the predators.

You've posted evidence of deer - some apparently mule deer, not whitetails - living in local concentrations along river bottoms with deciduous woods, historically. I have agreed with you. What's your claim?

The deciduous forests, that would be, found in the East Central, SE, and along the river bottoms, especially. That agrees with my posting. How much of the State do you think was dominated by that kind of deciduous forest? None of the caribou range - check out my linked map.

The word "abundant" may be a bit misleading also, especially to someone who has driven through - say - North Oaks or Inver Grove Heights of an evening and assumes "abundant" means more deer than the herds and road hazards they are passing every couple of minutes, or someone who has to slow down for the green light at the corner of Lexington and Lake Drive in the early mornings because the deer don't obey the crossing lights. Half as many deer as that would still be "abundant", for any kind of natural environment in the area. What you are looking at is an infestation.

So we are in agreement again. What's your claim?

 

39

 

Its YOU who doesnt read the links.

QUOTE from first Two Paragraphs of link I provided:

Little mention was made of the deer of this region by the early explorers, as most of their attention was taken up by the other more abundant and conspicuous forms of game. Alexander Henry rarely mentions them in the Red River country, and their principal use seems to have been to provide skins for clothing. Along the Missouri River bottoms, however, they were so numerous in the timber and lake regions that their numbers were often commented upon by Lewis and Clark (1893, p. 174, 233, 237) on their expedition up the river in 1804-5. On October 20, 1804, on the great flats just below the present site of Bismarck, great numbers of deer were reported. At Fort Mandan and old Fort Clark, these deer furnished an important part of the winter's food supply of the expedition as it wintered among the Indians. On one trip a hunting party brought in 40 deer, 16 elk, and 3 buffalo. On another trip a few miles down the river, February 21, 1805, Lewis returned with 3,000 pounds of meat, having killed 36 deer, 14 elk, and a wolf. Many deer were mentioned at other localities along the river on the way to Fort Union (Buford).
In 1833 while wintering among the Mandan Indians, Maximilian (Wied, 1839-1841, Bd. 2, p. 84, 1841) reported the white-tail as found in the nearest woods not a mile from the fort, while all other game was kept at a much greater distance by the Indians, who were constantly hunting for meat.
The disappearance of these deer from the greater part of North Dakota was coincident with the settlement of the country. While they were quickly destroyed, however, or driven from the small areas of cover, the more extensive areas are still preserving them in some decree of abundance locally. At Fort Sisseton, just below the southeastern corner of the State, Doctor McChesney (1878, p. 203), reported them as very common 10 years before, but said that none had been seen in that vicinity for several years. At Valley City Morris J. Kernall was told by several of the early settlers that white-tailed deer as well as mule deer were common there from 1878 up to 1885 or 1886, and one was reported by Frank White as killed in 1893. At Ellendale, in the possession if Fred S. Graham, Sheldon found a mounted head of a deer killed in the hills 12 miles northwest of Forbes in 1886.

Additionally, you missed this bit even though it was included in my org. snippet:

In Roosevelt's long and interesting account of the habits and methods of hunting these deer he gives a good picture of their former abundance and rapid disappearance after other more easily obtained game had vanished, and he pays a well-merited tribute to the cunning and sagacity of the animals in protecting themselves, even where the country became well settled.

Driving around Custer State Park S.Dakota, its obviously much easier to shoot a buffalo than a white tailed deer. I dont blame the settlers a bit for going after the easy shot vs trying to hit a bounding, leaping 40 mph target.

And there is a bunch more if you would just flipping READ the Info. But you have to Click On The Link to Read It. It will require you to SCROLL down to the section TITLED

Odocoileus virginianus Macrouris4 (Rafinesque)
Plains White-tailed Deer
See That?? PLAINS white tailed deer

Now before you try to claim its "different" I will repost from wiki:

Some taxonomists have attempted to separate white-tailed deer into a host of subspecies, based largely in morphological differences. Genetic studies,[clarification needed] however, suggest fewer subspecies within the animal's range, as compared to the 30 to 40 subspecies that some scientists described in the last century.

So we are back to your contention that white-tail were sparce in MN and virtually non-existant on the plains and mine that they were common.

Yeah, I think you make this stuff up.

 

More quotes showing deer populations localized around river bottoms and water bodies, more quotes like this:

as if they meant something important to you. Plains Whitetails don't live in tallgrass or shortgrass prairie, oak savannah, or pine or spruce forests, any more than any other subspecies of whitetail. They're the ones Roosevelt was talking about, in your link - near the river forts, along the Powder River and Little Missouri and such places.

Yep. Localized, not prevalent in most of the State, pockets of them in suitable habitat, the least favored and (in the north) least prevalent of the big game animals historically. Exactly as described in your links.

Looks hopeless to me. Let's try the thread topic, how about?

 

Some taxonomists have attempted to separate white-tailed deer into a host of subspecies, based largely in morphological differences. Genetic studies,[clarification needed] however, suggest fewer subspecies within the animal's range, as compared to the 30 to 40 subspecies that some scientists described in the last century.
Above from wiki.

And some people continue to try to separate white tails into separate subspecies....

http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/gtr/gtr_nc065.pdf

Your loathing of deer and deer hunters is duly noted. Your self-imposed confirmation bias dominates all your attempts of communication and is a hindrance to general understanding and diversity. It is an undesirable trait. Now weed through the above link and focus in on what you want to be true and ignore all the other aspects so you can continue to believe Your Right and the rest of us are uncivilized sobs.