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The WMA Solution
When you ask landowners about their deer management goals most answer that they want to produce quality bucks, no matter how small their property. Unfortunately, quality deer management is not a realistic goal for individual properties under 5,000 acres because mature bucks may range 6 miles or more during the rut. Even after being informed of this complication, most landowners still want to produce trophy bucks in the hope that they will occasionally see one. These small landowners must be prepared to share the fruits of their labor with their neighbors and/or their neighbor's hunters.
The concept behind wildlife management associations is founded in that simple truth. Since we are forced to share the fruits of our labor, why not share the labor as well? If we have similar goals, and can increase the likelihood of attaining those goals by working together, why not do it? The reality is that we will never be successful in managing our small properties as individual units, but by managing multiple tracks with complementary practices we can expect to see greater results.
Quality wildlife habitat is the key to a successful wildlife management program on any size property! Aldo Leopold’s five symbolic tools (axe, plow, cow, fire, and gun) of wildlife management all relate to manipulation of habitat. Creative applications of all five are essential for restoring and maintaining quality wildlife habitat. Even the gun is used as a tool to manipulate numbers of animals because over abundance can have a severe and long lasting negative impact on habitat. Just using one or two of the five tools is like a mechanic trying to fix an engine with only pliers and a screwdriver.
Any distraction from the primary focus of habitat management is putting the cart before the horse. The current popular fixation on deer genetics is a good example. This fixation, and the controversy attached to it, distracts from quality deer management. The genetics fixation helps popular magazine sales, at times doing little more than confusing readers by leading them to believe that genetics is the panacea for producing trophy deer. Maintaining quality habitat is the bigger part of the equation – and habitat improvements must be in place before significant genetic improvement can be realized.
Small properties can produce quality deer without high fences, imported deer, or selective breeding when landowners work together to achieve that outcome. When landowners establish reasonable deer harvest standards and habitat management practices, quality deer are the result. If the time and money put into genetic improvement where applied to habitat improvement and development of trust and cooperation between neighbors we would be far less compelled to focus on genetics.
Aldo Leopold is recognized as the father of wildlife management in this country. He did not believe that government, in and of itself, could manage wildlife. Today, that premise should be readily apparent. Wildlife Management Associations, on the other hand, are critical weapons in offsetting the devastating effects of land fragmentation in Texas. More than 94% of Texas is privately owned, and fragmentation of that land is the number 1 threat facing wildlife today. Large ranches and farms are being sold and subdivided at an alarming rate resulting in a huge loss and degradation of wildlife habitat. In addition, it is estimated that a million acres of rural Texas land is lost annually to parking lots, shopping centers and highways.
Fragmentation usually results in new landowners making “improvements” to the property they purchased. This means more access roads, land clearing for home sites, out buildings, pens, fences, utility right of ways, and landscaping, all of which reduce the amount of habitat available to wildlife. This is usually compounded by more frequent use of the land by people, motor vehicles and domestic animals. Hunting pressure generally increases because family members and friends suddenly have access to the property. Herbicide, pesticide and other chemical uses increase. Habitat quantity is reduced, its quality declines, and wildlife is forced out or suffers from increased pressure.
The only workable solution for small landowners in their quest for better deer, and quality wildlife of all types, is to work together with their neighbors and jointly manage enough habitat to support quality wildlife. The time tested and proven way to make that happen is for landowners to work within the structure of their local Wildlife Management Association.