Black bears kill a lot of moose fawns. I imagine they do the same for deer. Rarely are twin moose calves or deer fawns seen. There is always only one.

Years ago, we didn't have a doe season. Our deer season was much like what Musher has in Quebec, Canada, today. One buck and you were done. And you were lucky if you could find a buck.

Back before my time, I think the season was only 3 days, bucks only.

I think it was back in the early 70's the DNR had a 3 day antlerless deer season. I was just a kid. And that was only in certain counties within the state. I live in what they call a "Mountain county". For years and years, there was only a bear season in the Mountain Counties. Now it's open statewide.

Twenty five or 30 years ago, I could have taken you to a farm north of town, walk up on that one little point, a little bit before dark and count 75 or maybe 100 deer. I've got them on video. That farm is exactly 20 minutes from here at the house, if you know the road. Oh, it was fun to go down there and hunt with my blackpowder gun. Chase them around in those cedar trees all day long.

I have friends that live down there, today you'd be lucky to go down there one summer evening and see more than 10 or 12 deer. I was down there last summer swimming, I think for the grand total it was a doe and 2 fawns. Not sure?

If you think about it, we've got bear, coyotes, bobcats, eagles and now those black buzzards or black vultures, whatever you'd call them? 30 years ago, we didn't have as many bear, no coyotes and we didn't have the black vultures. And a lot less eagles too.

We've talked about these black buzzards before, this is above my pay rate and all, but they are an invasive predator. So, what do you do?

I talked to one of my landowners the other day, there were 6 or 8 of the black buzzards sitting in the trees above his calving pasture. It'd be a shame to see a critter that's worthless pick apart a healthy $150 Angus calf. We shall see.

My neighbor has them buzzards sitting and shi##ing on his house roof, He said what can i do about it.
I went over with my pellet gun and shot 2 or 3 of them,(didn't kill them, but got there attention)
I don't no if it is legal or not but if they come to my roof i will be getting a bigger gun out!

We don't want to get backed into a corner talking about these black buzzards, but they are worthless.

Next time I see an officer I'll ask exactly what the rules are as far as dealing with them.

The other evening I was talking to a farmer, I just said: I've been seeing some of those black vultures here and there. You'll be calving before long, tell your guys to keep an eye out. He told me that he's calving now, and that they've been watching.

Talking about our deer and moose with only one fawn or calf. Last fall I did see one doe with 3 fawns. Above where I told you about the day when I counted 13 deer. 3 fawns, 2 bucks and 8. It's very likely those were the same 3 fawns. They were right there in the same area. Never know.

Most times when momma doe is taken out of the picture, (hunting-roadkill) the very young fawns will migrate to another doe in the herd for raising. Auntie doe, as it were. Hence, two or three fawns together.

Frank.

You can get a depredation permit for black buzzards. However, since they are migratory birds, you have to shoot them with a shotgun using not-toxic shot.

Tim said something about seeing 75 to 100 dear twenty five years ago. Honestly that's way too many deer. Deer wera a pest in my neighborhood back then. However I think many people, got used to seeing that many deer, and when populations return to normal, they don't realize it as normal. I am not a fan of deer. If I'm deer hunting, I'm shooting the first one that walks in front of me.

In deference -- I suspect mountain populations are different from those in agricultural areas.

We have some strange laws on the books. That non-toxic shot was designed for waterfowl, for folks out hunting in a marsh or bog.

That one farm where I noticed the buzzards is 2 miles from the river. I can go out there and shoot crows, rabbits, squirrels and all else with lead shot. I can shoot all of the same with a rifle.

I'll try to get in touch with one of the local officers and see exactly what I can do. Legally.

Talking about seeing 100 deer, our local deer population peaked in the mid 80's. The DNR kept upping the bag limit, the 3 day doe season went to a week, now we're up to more than 3 weeks. In some areas the population is above where it should be, in other areas it's way below.

The DNR hasn't changed the bag limit or decreased the bag limit, more or less leaving that up to the property owner. Which that's good. About all of the property in this area is private land.

About that farm where you could count 100 deer, it's the last pasture along the river for 7 or 8 miles, late in the evening the deer would come out of the woods in herds. They'd come out, 15, 18 or 20 deer in a bunch. That property was sold to the WV DNR several years ago, it's the McNeil Wildlife Managment Area today. Open to the public. Years ago I had keys to the gate, it was nice. 464 acres, I believe. It's hunted pretty hard these days, from what I've been told.

Above where I mentioned the hunt club with the "Save our Doe" sign. That property has been overhunted. There are less deer on the mountain today than there was back when I was 16 years old.

Part of the reasoning for the "Save our Doe" sign, is about a deer's "homerange".

I don't remember where I first heard this? Not sure if it was some DNR study or if a biologist told me in person? According to this theory, they say that 90% of whitetail deer will die within a mile and a half of where it was born. Not that is for here in the east, I know out west muledeer will migrate miles during winter.

Assuming that's true. If we have a circle with a radius of 1.5 miles (diameter of 3 miles), that would be an area of 7 square miles. 640 X 7 = 4,500 acres. Give or take.

Do a search: Deer homerange. You'll find all kinds of #'s.

But the reason for the "Save our Doe" sign, and I agree with this. The deer that are born here in the valley, are not going to migrate 5 or 10 or 20 miles to eat pine and laurel brush. And face a tougher winter, more snow and all.

Above I mentioned the doe with 3 fawns, that was last summer when I bumped into them. Not sure, maybe July? But the fawn's spots were very vivid, they weren't very old. The doe walked up the ridge a few steps, stopped and waited for the fawns to catch up and then walked out of sight. Never did get a picture of them. But I believe they were triplets. You don't see triplets very often, but now and then.

The last time I checked the "saltlick" camera, this was back when we had snow on the ground. I wasn't getting many pictures. I had 3 or 4 pictures of a single fawn. About a week later I had 3 or 4 pictures of 2 fawns, about a week after that I had pictures of 4 fawns. One of the last, most recent pictures on that camera is a picture of 4 fawns and an adult doe.

I'd guess that the snow kind of pushed them down into the pine and cedar trees, where they could get to bare ground. That's where they found each other and just stayed in a group.

Last Susnday, when we had fresh snow on the ground I took the new dog for a ride. The snow stopped Saturday evening, just before dark, so it'd only been on the ground one night.

I went to the best place that I can think of to find a bobcat track, not likely that I'd find a cat track, but only one way to find out. This new dog is a bundle of energy she needs something to run. I thought maybe I could find a fox or coyote track. I was going to try to get her started on any of them. There's a lot of pup in her yet.

Anyway, I tracked out the mountain, the only thing that I tracked was 6 or 7 deer. Not sure about 6 or 7 miles of road? Plus we made 2 little loops, never cut a track on them.

The first 2 deer tracks were of an adult deer and a fawn. Forget about the rest? They were milling around in the edge of the road eating pine brush, had it tracked up pretty good.

Didn't track a squirrel or rabbit or anything else. Beautiful sunny day to be out, the temp stayed right at 32*. I was up at 3,000 feet elevation, give or take. I was on the mountain till almost dark, the dog had a good run, just trotting behind the truck mostly.

Coming off the mountain, the road comes down the backbone of this pine ridge, I was almost in sight of the public road and there were 7 deer in the powerline. All 7 of them were fawns. Not an adult deer in sight. On up the road another mile or so, there was another single fawn.

If you read those links above, we are probably in the zone where we could expect 0 to 25% of our fawns to breed. One thing that I read in one of the links above was about "poor farming practices" That just doesn't apply to this area.

I live in Hardy Co. WV. Just checked, Hardy county has an area of 584 square miles, I can take you to places within the county, where deer are over populated and I can take you to places where there are very few deer. It varies from spot to spot.

Above we were talking about the rifle caliber 500 Jeffery. Day before yesterday the man that bought the gun stopped by here at work. I asked if he'd had a chance to take that big gun out play with it yet. He said: No. My hip has been giving me trouble, I couldn't hardly walk for 2 or 3 days, I'm about halfway afraid to shoot it right now.

It's going to thump him hard, and he knows it too.

He's supposed to bring a live round up so I can check it out. He said he always likes to compare it to a round of 30-06 ammo.