Whitetail Insider

Neighborly Advice

By: Dr. Chris Rosenberry

In previous articles, we have discussed the when, how and why of yearling buck dispersal. In many deer populations, more than half of yearling bucks will disperse miles from where they were born. And harvesting more does may not help reduce the losses of yearling bucks.

For landowners, dispersal creates difficulties. In many cases, managers provide good habitat and harvest protection for young bucks that will leave the property between 12 and 18 months of age. The new bucks arriving on a property may not have enjoyed the same start in life as those deer on a well managed property. Working with your neighbors is probably the best way to influence your buck population. Over the course of two studies of buck dispersal, hunter behavior and attitudes changed in the area surrounding Chesapeake Farms. From the mid-1990s, Chesapeake Farms and the Quality Deer Management Association actively encouraged landowners and hunters to protect young bucks from harvest in western Kent County, Maryland. The benefits of these efforts became apparent when a second dispersal study was conducted.

At Chesapeake Farms our first study ran from 1994-1996 when quality deer management (QDM) educational efforts started. During this study, Chesapeake Farms was losing more yearling bucks to other properties than it was receiving. Survival of yearling bucks on Chesapeake Farms was almost twice as high as for bucks that dispersed. Hunting accounted for most mortalities and the majority of hunter-killed deer occurred during early deer seasons that coincided with dispersal. Higher hunting pressure outside of Chesapeake Farms resulted in a net loss of yearling bucks each year.

The second study, 2000-2002, occurred after the QDM efforts. During this study, Chesapeake Farms was gaining more bucks from other properties than it was losing. Survival of yearling bucks outside of Chesapeake Farms increased substantially, as did survival on Chesapeake Farms. The potential immigrants to Chesapeake Farms were no longer being heavily hunted on neighboring properties. The end result was more bucks for Chesapeake Farms to manage into the adult age classes.

Working with other landowners worked at Chesapeake Farms, but how many neighbors does an individual landowner need to contact? Beyond our work at Chesapeake Farms, other dispersal research from Pennsylvania has identified some general dispersal patterns. In a study by Dr. Eric Long and others, that was published in the Journal of Mammalogy in June 2005, a strong relationship between average dispersal distance and percent forest cover was observed. This study looked at dispersal patterns from studies in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland (Chesapeake Farms), Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia. Based on this work, one can predict the average dispersal distance if the percent of forest cover in an area is known.

The following table gives landowners an idea of how far, on average, yearling bucks will disperse in their area. This distance will also give landowners an idea of how far they need to go to identify their neighbors to improve their chances of increasing the number of bucks immigrating to their property. Even in areas with less forest cover and longer average dispersal distances, any efforts to work with neighboring properties should help a landowner’s chances of reducing net losses of bucks from their property each year.

Percent Forest	Average Dispersal Distance (miles)
10	19
20	16
30	13
40	10
50	7
60	4
70	1

Please visit our sponsor.