The deer management and permit program offered by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is going to see some changes in 2017. According to TPWD, the Managed Lands Deer Permit (MLDP) Program looks to take advantage of available technologies in order to better serve its customers. A faster, leaner online system will ensure the program runs as efficiently as possible.
Landowners participating in the wildly-popular MLDP will be able to complete the enrollment process and print their tags online beginning this summer, thanks to a new automated system being implemented by the TPWD. The new online process is just one aspect of a much-needed overhaul of the MLDP, which began in 1996 and has become so successful that it outpaced the department’s manpower and resources.
MLDP Participation
According to TPWD, there are currently more than 10,000 farms and ranches covering about 26 million acres that are enrolled in the MLD program. The program is designed to foster and support sound management and stewardship of native wildlife and wildlife habitats on private lands in Texas. Participation is recognized through incentive-based deer tag issuance that provides extended hunting season lengths and liberalized harvest opportunities beyond what is allowed under the county deer hunting regulations.
Participants also have access to varying levels of technical assistance regarding wildlife and habitat management from department biologists.
New MLDP Options
TPWD has simplified the program down to two options — Harvest or Conservation — from the previous three levels of white-tailed deer MLD, mule deer MLD, and the Landowner Assisted Management Permits (LAMPS). Both options retain issuance of deer tags that can be used during an extended hunting season about October 1 through the end of February, but the Harvest Option does come with early season buck harvest restrictions (archery equipment only in October for branched-antlered bucks). Antlerless and unbranched antler bucks may still be harvested by any legal means during the entire MLDP season.
Program Enrollment
Landowners seeking to enroll their property in either the MLDP Harvest or Conservation Option must use the new Land Management Assistance online system when it becomes available to submit an application for participation. The application process will require the landowner to create an account and to draw a property boundary in the online system.
An email address is required for the landowner and any designated agents the landowner may assign to the account. Read more about Land Management Assistance in Texas.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) announced that it will be offering a new deer permit program in 2017, Land Management Assistance. The program will be the result of merging a couple of deer permit programs (MLDP+LAMPS) into two options, resulting in the Harvest Option and the Conservation Option.
Under the new deer permit program, participating landowners selecting the Harvest Option will receive automated deer harvest recommendations, tag issuance, and general correspondence about wildlife and habitat management for their property. No site specific deer population/survey data will be required under the Harvest Option, which also means property owners will not receive site specific harvest recommendations from a TPWD biologist.
The Conservation Option is similar in scope to the old Level 3 MLDP, and comes with customized technical guidance and harvest recommendations from TPWD, requiring at least 3 approved habitat management practices be implemented each year on a participating property.
Deer Management in Texas
TPWD currently issues about 330,000 deer tags each year through the MLDP Program. “Phenomenal growth in the MLD program over the last 20 years has presented significant challenges for staff to meet the increasing number of requests from landowners for technical assistance and simply administer the program,” explained Alan Cain, TPWD white-tailed deer program leader.
Effective this year, participants will be able to print their own MLDP tags, which will eliminate issues with tags lost in the mail, not arriving on time, or bad address, and provide greater convenience and flexibility to participants.
The system retooling won’t sacrifice the core mission of the program, Cain reassured, rather will enable limited wildlife biologist staff to focus private lands technical guidance efforts on site-specific wildlife population and habitat management recommendations.
Land Management Assistance Continued
“Our primary goal is to continue developing long-term relationships with private landowners, engage and educate them about the importance of management in promoting healthy habitats and wildlife populations, and ultimately put more resource conservation on the ground,” said Cain.
Despite the state’s economic growth, there is little doubt that white-tailed deer hunting and management will continue to be extremely popular in Texas. It will be interesting to hear how changes impact current program participants. Additional information and details about the deer management permit program is available online at TPWD.
Unfortunately, white-tailed deer hunting, management and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) now go hand-in-hand in Texas. It’s something that wildlife officials, hunters and deer herds are dealing with across the country. Texas and many states have been sampling hunter-harvested deer to find out more about where the deadly disease is and is not. The end game is far from unknown.
CWD Sampling in Texas
The 2016-17 collection year resulted in a couple of unwanted firsts for CWD in Texas, including detections in a free-ranging whitetail and a free-ranging elk. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) surpassed its statewide goal of 6,735 CWD samples, collecting 9,830 from hunter harvested and road kill deer, and other susceptible cervid species, between March 1, 2016 and Feb. 28, 2017.
Sampling by DMUs
Sampling objectives were established by TPWD wildlife biologists based on deer densities within each of the 41 Deer Management Units (DMU) in Texas and other factors to establish sufficient confidence of detection if CWD were present within those localized populations.
TPWD wildlife staff collected CWD samples from a variety of locations including: road kill deer, deer processors, private ranches, wildlife management areas and state parks, and voluntary and mandatory hunter harvest check stations. Of the 9,830 samples collected, 23 percent were road kill. Exotic species that have been sampled include axis deer, fallow deer, red stag, sika, and elk; although there is no evidence that axis and fallow deer are susceptible to this disease.
Details about each CWD detection in Texas are available online. Just click on the image below to find out more.
Texas’ CWD First
Sometimes it’s good to have firsts—sometimes it’s not. Among the CWD positives detected in Texas this past season, here are some notable firsts:
The first confirmed case of CWD in a free-ranging Texas whitetail was detected in a hunter harvested 1 1/2 –year-old buck submitted for sampling within the Surveillance Zone 3 located in portions of Medina, Uvalde, and Bandera counties.
The first known free-ranging elk in Texas to test positive for CWD, harvested by a hunter in Dallam County.
The first known case of a captive-raised white-tailed deer in Texas that live tested “not detected” for CWD, but after being harvested by a hunter on a release site three months later tested positive for the disease.
To date, Texas has recorded 49 confirmed cases of CWD, of which 26 were discovered in captive deer breeding pens, 5 were hunter harvested on breeder deer release sites, 16 were free-ranging mule deer, 1 was a free-ranging elk, and 1 was a free-ranging white-tailed deer.
CWD in West Texas
“The good news is so far our sampling in the Tran-Pecos has only detected CWD in the Hueco Mountains area,” said Dr. Bob Dittmar, TPWD wildlife veterinarian. “Since 2012, the disease has been found in 13 mule deer out of 117 tested in the Hueco Mountains area for an 11 percent prevalence rate.”
Dittmar also expressed guarded confidence that CWD has not spread outside the Hueco Mountains area based on increased sampling in the surrounding ranges.
“The mandatory sampling in the Trans-Pecos SZ helped get an increase in sampling from the Delaware Mountains this year and while we have accumulated a decent number of samples around the Guadalupe Mountains, both remain areas of concern and we still need some more sampling out there.” he noted.
CWD in Central Texas
The state’s wildlife disease management response focuses on an early detection and containment strategy designed to limit the spread of CWD from the affected area and better understand the distribution and prevalence of the disease.
The detection of CWD in a free-ranging whitetail in Medina County this season resulted from enhanced voluntary testing of hunter harvested deer, allowing TPWD to initiate proactive measures aimed at containment rather than reactive steps targeting control.
“The more effective we are at containing this disease within a limited geographic area, the better it will be for our wildlife resources and all those who enjoy them,” Dittmar said. “We want to thank the Texas hunting community for its strong support of our management efforts; we cannot combat the spread of CWD without it.”
Whether you use your land for livestock grazing , white-tailed deer management or both, it’s a good idea to have a handle on Texas’ fencing laws. We’ve all heard the saying, “good fences make for good neighbors,” but even good folks with pretty good fences can get sideways when it comes to disputes over unforeseen situations, property lines and “extra” livestock.
Have you ever wondered if a landowner is liable if his livestock get out and are hit on the road? Can a landowner make a neighbor chip in and and pay for repairs to a shared boundary fence? What should a property owner do when someone else’s cattle are on their land? Or what can I do about my neighbor’s tree limbs hanging over the fence and onto my property?
Texas Fence Law Answered
There will come a time for every Texas landowner when having some general knowledge about fencing laws will come in handy. Fortunately, a new publication titled Five Strands: A Landowner’s Guide to Fence Law in Texas is now available to help landowners make sense of some of the more common issues property owners face across the Lone Star State.
The best thing—this handbook was written in terms that normal people can understand. It is designed as a resource that can be thrown on the dash of a pick up along with a ranchers’ other important documents. This publication provides answers to common questions related to fence law that come up frequently for Texas landowners and livestock producers.
Below are a several examples from the handbook:
My neighbor’s cattle are on my land. How do I remove them?
The answer depends on whether this situation occurs in an open-range county or in one that has passed a stock law making it a closed range.
Lessee Liability?
Many Texas livestock producers lease the land they they run their livestock on. This presents a question of who is responsible for fencing the land the livestock run on–the landowner or the lessee? Absent an agreement allocating responsibility between the landowner and the lessee, these laws could apply to both the landowner and the lessee who runs the livestock on a ranch.
How do the adequate fence standards of the Agriculture Code apply?
The Texas Agriculture Code establishes the requirements for a “sufficient fence;” however, these fencing standards apply only in open-range counties where fences are meant to keep livestock “out” rather than “in.”17 These sufficient fence standards do not apply in a closed-range county, nor can they be used to determine negligence or liability in a roadway accident situation.
Clearing Brush to Build a Fence on a Boundary Line
Sometimes a landowner building a fence along a boundary line must clear brush on both his or her own property and the neighbor’s property. If this is necessary, the landowner should always seek permission from the neighbor before entering his or her property and before any brush management takes place.
Without such permission, entering a neighbor’s property and removing the brush could be considered trespassing and subject the acting landowner to damages. It is always better to ask for permission ahead of time. If permission is denied, the landowner may have to back the fence up on his or her property.
Cutting Down a Tree Hanging over a Property Line
Assume that a tree grows on the neighbor’s property, but the limbs and branches overhang another’s land. What rights do the parties have in that situation? In Texas, the location of the trunk of the tree determines who owns it, even if the roots or branches grow onto an adjoining neighbor’s land. A landowner has the right to trim or cut off the limbs or branches of boundary trees or brush that reach onto his or her property, as long as no damage to the other adjoining landowner occurs.
However, the limbs or branches can be cut back only to the property line. The tree’s owner is responsible for any damages caused to the adjacent owner from falling branches or roots. It is in the best interest of the tree’s owner to control the growth of the tree so it does not create a source of potential damage to the neighboring landowner.
There are many aspects to managing a white-tailed deer population, but once the basic concepts of population management and an understanding of white-tailed deer are in hand, implementing and effective management plan to achieve desired results can become reality. With all that said, science has never been able to stand in the path of public perception. Perception, after all, is reality. This is playing out with the Staten Island deer population in New York.
This site is dedicated to helping property owners interested in white-tailed deer management. The goal is to help people manage their land and the deer that live there. We regularly focus on management practices that can be implemented to successfully improve whitetail habitat and deer population parameters. The focus here is on techniques that work, but we would be remiss if we did not point out things that no one should do, not even with someone else’s money.
Image ny1.com
Population Control on Staten Island: Is This the Plan?
The citizens of New York are about to have a lot of their hard-earned money wasted in an attempt to improperly “control” the Staten Island white-tailed deer population. Their plan involves sterilization of buck deer over a three year period with an expected cost of $2 million… for just the first year.
The Parks Department plans to sterilize hundreds of male deer to help manage Staten Island’s out-of-control and expanding herd, starting as soon as this fall’s rutting season if the plan is approved by the state.
“We do aim to get all of them in order to completely limit the reproduction,” said Sarah Aucoin, Chief of Wildlife and Education at Parks.
The three-year effort is expected to eventually reduce the borough herd 10 to 30 percent. The city would spend $2 million this first year, with the annual cost going down as fewer males are left to sterilize.
Mayor Bill de Blasio will ask the comptroller’s office to fast-track contracting for the endeavor this week. The chosen vendor and city will then apply for a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which regulates wildlife and must approve a control plan.
“We are moving ahead with a plan to manage the impacts of the deer population on Staten Island in a way that is smart, effective, and humane,” de Blasio said in a statement.
Deer Management: Assumptions Flawed
As I was reading the remainder of the article it was evident that the Staten Island deer management program was going awry. There were a lot of assumptions but, no measurable objectives other than they hoped to decrease the deer population by 10-30 percent lower in three years. Someone will make a lot of money (cha-ching) trapping and sterilizing deer, but throwing good money at a bad idea will not make it a good idea.
An improbable solution, no matter how expensive, will not address the growing deer population living on Staten Island. Let’s look at some assumptions made by NYC officials that need to be addressed:
1. “We do aim to get all of them [bucks] in order to completely limit the reproduction.” It has been assumed that contractors can actually put their hands on all of the bucks living on Staten Island. By the way, the island is almost 60 square miles.
First, there is no way to capture all of the bucks. Impossible. As you successfully sterilize bucks within the herd, the time and money it takes to capture the remaining bucks goes up exponentially as the number of untreated bucks declines. And, if you do not get them all the first year then the remaining bucks will breed the remaining does. Contractors would need to sterilize at least 90 percent of the buck herd in year one, otherwise all the work done during year one is for naught.
A short course on whitetail breeding ecology: A whitetail doe initially comes into estrus during the fall for a 2-3 day period. If she is not impregnated during the initial estrus period then she will continue to cycle every 28 days throughout the fall and winter until she is bred or her hormones make her stop. In short, a few less bucks will not impact the number of does impregnated but only the timing of when they are bred.
2. “Sterilization was chosen because Staten Island’s herd is mostly growing through reproduction, not migration.” The assumption here is that “other deer” will not move in and add to the island’s current deer population. Also assuming, again, that they will have a significant impact on the number of breeding bucks in year one.
White-tailed deer do not technically migrate, so this statement is true. Yes, reproduction is responsible for population increases. Unfortunately, the deer found living on and off of Staten Island do not recognize the same arbitrary boundaries that we do. There is a 100 percent chance that bucks living near, but not on, Staten Island will move in and breed does living on Staten Island during subsequent breeding seasons.
It is an Island, but it’s not necessarily a closed population. Whitetail arrived by swimming over from New Jersey and they will continue to do so. They will come from other areas bordering the island, too. The news about sterilization will not stop them.
3. “A 2014 aerial survey found 763 deer in Staten Island’s green space, though some ecologists think there may be more than 1,000 here now.” It’s assumed that 763 deer was the number of the deer in the population in 2014, but that is really only the number that were observed, actually counted. There have also been two additional years of reproduction.
There are way deer more than you think. Aerial surveys for wildlife are designed to work by observers counting animals in a given area, say 1 square mile, then interpolating those numbers to additional, similar areas that were not surveyed, such as another 10 square miles. Observers, however, do not see all of the animals.
This is inherently true for just about any type of wildlife survey because it is completely possible to miss animals that are present in the environment. Deer can stay bedded down, simply be out of view and can avoid detection by moving away from observers. Surveys are critically important for managing wildlife populations, but most biologists acknowledge that surveys typically result in an estimate of the “minimum population size,” for the reasons outlined above.
Depending on the survey method used, the estimated population can be significantly lower than the actual population. This is especially true for aerial surveys, where a number of factors must be considered. If surveyors observed 763 deer in 2014 then the Staten Island deer population consists of least 1,500 animals now. In short, the scope of the work is much larger than they think.
4. “The biggest adult bucks that mate with the most does would be sterilized first, followed by smaller, younger and less popular males.” It’s assumed that older bucks do 90 percent of the breeding.
All age classes of bucks participate in the rut. Mature bucks do breed more does than younger bucks, but the score is closer than most think. Research has found that older bucks (3 1/2+ years old) will actually sire about 50-70 percent of the fawns, but the percentage of fawns sired by younger bucks actually increases as their proportion increases within a buck population. Sterilization will prevent treated bucks from participating in the rut, but that gap will be quickly filled by untreated bucks, regardless of age.
It should also be pointed out that older bucks are smart animals with experience on their side, so they will be much more difficult to capture and treat. Contractors need to capture 90+ percent of the buck population every year for sterilization to be effective in a closed population, so my recommendation would be to not pass on any bucks, regardless of age. But the Staten Island deer population is not closed.
Image imgur.com
Cost to Control Staten Island’s Deer Population
The first year of this three-year project is expected to cost $2 million. Assuming at least $1 million is set aside for each of the two subsequent years, that would put the 3 year project at a total costs of $4 million. Some have said there could be as many as 1,000 deer on the island. Officials hope to decrease the deer population by 10-30 percent over 3 years. That would be a total of 100-300 deer given the “perceived” population size.
Apparently, NYC is content with spending $13,300-$40,000 per deer to decrease the Staten Island deer population. They could use that money to help those less fortunate. And they could deliver them high protein, hunter-harvested venison, too.
