Booshway
| Very interesting. Cool stuff. I've been to Assateague, but had no idea that such exotics existed there. When I lived in Michigan I sometimes hunted whitetails in the reeds and cattail marshes along Lake Erie. I could hear the deer walking through the muck and ankle deep water only 20 yards from me, but I couldn't see them due to the thick reeds. On Belle Isle in the middle of the Detroit River there is a small herd of Fallow deer. They are half tame, however, and cannot be hunted.
Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
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| Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011 |
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Hivernant
| So Osprey, about what year were the Sika introduced to the area? And does the DNR have a good idea of the numbers that out there? I'm also interested to know harvest limits, and tag availability versus Whitetail for resident/non-resident. Cool pics, and thanks for sharing. That's what I love about this forum, sharing info, skills, and a little glimpse of the lives and activities from good folks all over the country.
A nod's as good as a blink to a blind horse
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| Posts: 143 | Location: Indiana Territory | Registered: 22 September 2013 |
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Booshway
| Check http://www.dnr.state.md.us/nat...summer2003/sika.html for info from the DNR on sika. Licenses are over the counter, limits and info at http://www.eregulations.com/maryland/hunting/ . They say we've got a herd of around 15,000, but after some of the stuff I've seen from our DNR I'm never sure if they know exactly what's going on with anything! Blackwater NWR has them, too, with lottery hunts and separate bag limits. Assateague Island National Seashore has separate bag limits, too, but they've hammered their population the last 5 years and it's hardly worth hunting there anymore. |
| Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011 |
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Factor
| HOLY CRAP I didn't know they went that big! I guess the ones that I'd seen were young, and I thought it was like shooting a dog..., BUT if they go that big, not that I'm that particular anyway..., I stand corrected..., and shall have to go across The Bay. LD
It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
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| Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004 |
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Booshway
| quote: Originally posted by 1720Todd: I'll take my camera. Been trying to get some good shots of them for years.
Assateague is definitely the best place for photos, the places I hunt in Dorchester are way too thick for much of that. Stags hold their antlers into April, I always had good luck in the State Park and National Seashore in February and March for pics. It's hard for me to take people along hunting. Mainly go in by kayak and it's always a last minute decision based on tides and winds. I hunt all public ground for sika and the easy to reach spots get hit pretty hard all season. |
| Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011 |
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Booshway
| congrats
"But I swear, a woman's breast is the hardest rock that the Almighty ever made on this earth, and I can find no sign on it." Bear Claw Chris Lapp
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| Posts: 516 | Location: Ft Parker/Ft Manuel Lisa | Registered: 15 April 2007 |
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Pilgrim
| How do they taste compared to whitetail? Do they use the same habitat as whitetail or different habitat and forage? In other words if they were introduced to an area would they compete with whitetail or be an additional game animal? Thanks. |
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Pilgrim
| I ate them before. It was pretty tough and gamey. They can live for many years and it affects the meat. I'm sure an nice young one would fare better on the table though.
Research conducted in Maryland indicates that white-tailed deer and sika deer can coexist and it does not appear that they directly compete with each other. However, more research is needed to confirm this relationship.
Sika deer inhabit marshes, swamps, and associated woodlands and agricultural fields. Sika Deer are a small elk introduced from Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) by private citizens into Maryland in 1916. Recently, their range has expanded and some individuals have been found in Delaware. As a result, the Division will allow Delaware hunters to harvest sika deer while hunting for white-tailed deer. The sika deer population in Delaware is still very small and the Division would like to keep it that way. Sika deer are not native to the State, so following the Division’s goal of not promoting nonnative species they may be harvested. I have eaten sika and it was tough and gamey. They can live to be quite old and eat marsh grasses and flora.
We consider them additional game, however, in Delaware you have to use a whitetail tag if you take one. We don't a separate tag. |
| Posts: 88 | Location: Delaware | Registered: 07 January 2013 |
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Booshway
| Bubba, for a long time the thinking was sika displaced whitetail, but it seems more that they favor marginal whitetail habitat and co-exist with whitetails on better habitat. Our strain came from Yakushima Island and are one of the smallest of the sika strains. Oddly enough, while they favor marshes (the adage for hunting them is find a place they can keep their feet wet) their original habitat in Yakushima is mountain conifer forests. Some of the research I've seen points more to a liking for acid soils, which would explain both habitats.
Dang things eat like billy goats. They love corn, but they'll eat salt hay on the marshes, phrag, acorns, field crops, bayberry leaves, even holly leaves. They can live out on a salt marsh two miles from the nearest tree and thrive, places whitetails would never stay. |
| Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011 |
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Pilgrim
| The reason I ask is there is a larger "deer/elk"- the sambar- that is on some coast islands and I believe they eat wet succulent grasses, etc- food whitetail deer normally don't eat, SO....if you put sambar on an Island with deer, their presence doesn't reduce the whitetail population- at least in theory. It sounds like the Sika might be a similar situation. |
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