Carrying Capacity
Name: Chris Cohick
Title of Article: What is Carrying Capacity?
Author and Brief Background: Kip Adams, QDMA Director of Education & Outreach, northern U.S
Date of Submission: June 27, 2009
Carrying Capacity When first inquiring into this article, it gave me the impression it was going to just define carrying capacity. After further looking into it, I then realized it relates carrying capacity to having a successful quality deer management area. The two concepts really go hand in hand. For example, if one doesn’t have knowledge of the carrying capacity of their land then they will not run a successful quality deer management area (QDMA). Three key points to running a QDMA; understand biological carrying capacity, cultural carrying capacity, and maximum sustainable yield. What I found interesting about those key points was that it actually wasn’t entirely true that if I harvest a doe it would be killing next year’s buck. As long as the area is being properly managed and is not below the maximum sustainable yield it is helpful to harvest doe to keep the population in order. This article is very helpful to everyday life if you enjoy whitetail deer hunting and are trying to keep your land producing at the highest potential. I would have to agree with the entire article due to the fact it is quite factual and the methods have been proven numerous times. It also explains how human activity can be a big factor in wildlife management and some actions we wouldn’t expect to be a factor at all have quite a bit of affect on the QDMA. The knowledge I have acquired from this article verifies how important carrying capacity is to QDMA, but also the entire planet. It is not only under population that we should be worried about, but overpopulation can also have detrimental effects to the environment including extinction. It has always been a goal of mine to own land that I can take care of and make a quality hunting area. Everything mentioned in this article
Title of Article: What is Carrying Capacity?
Author and Brief Background: Kip Adams, QDMA Director of Education & Outreach, northern U.S
Date of Submission: June 27, 2009
Carrying Capacity When first inquiring into this article, it gave me the impression it was going to just define carrying capacity. After further looking into it, I then realized it relates carrying capacity to having a successful quality deer management area. The two concepts really go hand in hand. For example, if one doesn’t have knowledge of the carrying capacity of their land then they will not run a successful quality deer management area (QDMA). Three key points to running a QDMA; understand biological carrying capacity, cultural carrying capacity, and maximum sustainable yield. What I found interesting about those key points was that it actually wasn’t entirely true that if I harvest a doe it would be killing next year’s buck. As long as the area is being properly managed and is not below the maximum sustainable yield it is helpful to harvest doe to keep the population in order. This article is very helpful to everyday life if you enjoy whitetail deer hunting and are trying to keep your land producing at the highest potential. I would have to agree with the entire article due to the fact it is quite factual and the methods have been proven numerous times. It also explains how human activity can be a big factor in wildlife management and some actions we wouldn’t expect to be a factor at all have quite a bit of affect on the QDMA. The knowledge I have acquired from this article verifies how important carrying capacity is to QDMA, but also the entire planet. It is not only under population that we should be worried about, but overpopulation can also have detrimental effects to the environment including extinction. It has always been a goal of mine to own land that I can take care of and make a quality hunting area. Everything mentioned in this article