muntjac control.

The munties will end up taking over just like the Muslims and the pikes they are hear to stay so it best to accept it and use them to our advantage Cheshire will be alive with them soon they are taking over
not anywhere in the miles and 41/2hrs i put in last night not a skerrick! only bunnies and the ever present badgers, wouldnt turn my nose up at couple atb doug,
 
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To be honest I don't really stalk muntys anymore finding it much more productive to wait it out in the highseats for muntjac than stalking on foot accouted for ten so far this year from my little patch , does anybody have the figures for how many kms muntjac spread thier range each year ?
I would say that muntjact are territorial ,and do seem to have a place that thry retrun to ,although they range , where range is concerned you will offten see the same munt jac taking the route at the same time of day and not to far from where it lives i would say with inn 20-30 acrea's ,I shoot a block of wood witch is 8-10 acreas the wood is in the middle of the vilage there is just muntjac in the wood ,all the surrounding house's have problem's with muntjac in there gardens .i think to date i have shoot 18 heavily pregant doe's and just 3 big bucks ,its was like a muntjac breeding center with the young being pushed out to make way for the new kids ,there had been alot of muntjac being run over and fights with dogs were not uncommon ,so my gusse is that if left alone muntjac will quickly form a connolly witch will happily exisit and populate a area with the dominant bucks and doe's controlling who stays and who gose carsting out the young every 5-6months, they have to go find a home of there own getting pushed from piller to post by others that already live in the area
 
We normally shoot a higher percentage of bucks a year then does, thats predominantly because we see more bucks.
Paul at Barony, how much experience with muntjac management do you have? I seem to remember on the post about your Finnish trip it was mentioned that you had only shot a couple.
 
We normally shoot a higher percentage of bucks a year then does, thats predominantly because we see more bucks.
Paul at Barony, how much experience with muntjac management do you have? I seem to remember on the post about your Finnish trip it was mentioned that you had only shot a couple.
you are right there are more bucks shot as a rule of thumb , the wood i refer to had never been shot untill i arrived .i think think out off the 64 i shot from aprill to april 2013 -2014 the split was fairl even .but take away the 18 does from that wood and there would be noticeable diffrence if the bucks favour ,i will dig out last years cull sheets tonight just out off a matter of intrest
 
I don't know exactly when they were introduced at Woburn but I know that some fifty years ago I was shown a stuffed one by our local keeper that he had shot in 1939
It was a miniature of today's bucks and was shot in mistake for a bob tailed fox. That was at the junction of the M6/M42 where the only deer seen then were escapees from Packington.That is a distance of some 60 miles so a good indication of travelling ability. In the 1950's the big woods between Coventry and Leamington were heaving with them.
 
They turned up in my patch Notts /Derby border about 8 years ago , i believe the were following the railway lines,numbers have not exploded and we are not seeing dead ones on the road. Roe have also recently made an appearance and are being heavily guarded.
 
sws, so to know something well and understand it you have to kill loads of them..... god damn animal expert murders on tv!! no wonder pandas are going extinct!!!
 
Not at all; but it amazes me how many experts on a topic have little experience past reading about it.
 
This is a very interesting thread as it seems all muntjac threads are. As to the original post I think that densities and damage should perhaps influence your policy on shooting does.
This brings me to a question that I often wonder about muntjac. Why in some parts of the country that have had muntjac for decades are densities relatively low where as in other parts the population explodes to plague proportions?
Not meaning to hijack the thread but I would be interested if anybody had any ideas.
 
Different species but same issue...roe deer expanding through the fens of Cambs; field scale maize for anaerobic digesters is great cover, plus there's plenty of food.

Some farmers want them culled due to damage to countryside stewardship scheme hedge planting, etc and some want them left alone as they're seen as a novelty still.

How long before the penny drops that any species without a predator will need control?
 
IMO careful observation before taking the shot will tell you if there's young in tow no matter if thin or fat. Time on your ground wether with rifle or not will give you better chance of a shot as they are territorial and I always see them in the same places at same times. Until you shoot it. Highseats on tracks are by far the most productive IMO.

I also think they are a great interesting asset to the stalking world although they can cause immense damage to wild flowers and tree crops.

Do I shoot everyone on sight NO as it suits my landowner not to. Different land yes after making sure I'm no orphaning a fawn.
 
5 years ago I took on the management of 8 hectares of woodland. Its mainly hazel coppice, although none had been done in 10 years. I started with block coppicing to establish a 7 year cycle. Now I'm not a pro woodsman or Stalker but one thing I soon realised was you don't get nice new hazel growth and Muntjac in the same wood. So after 3 years of trying to control muntjac numbers with no real benefit to the hazel I started shooting on site all muntjac. Only now is the hazel becoming established and funnily the numbers of Muntjac I shoot has also not declined. There will always be Muntjac.
A post made by someone managing both the woodland, and an invasive species within it, whom has found that a zero tolerance of muntjac has allowed his coppiced areas to regenerate, yet still has a cull figure roughly the same. If you are involved with woodland grants, or your landowner has a significant income from woodland, you cannot mess around with a misinformed cull management strategy before the forester/contractor will be after better control from someone else. Muntjac repopulate faster than most people realise, will always repopulate a recently vacated area, and people whom have controlled them hard over many years, find that there is no significant drop in numbers when they've upped their game. If pressed hard, dos the female munty drop more female kids, maybe because you will find you're shooting more females than bucks as the years roll by. A policy of ensuring a dependant kid is not left behind also puts pressure on the stalker, controlling them involves a huge investment of time, and probably more stalkers under you to ensure the numbers/damage is acceptable to the landowner. deerwarden.
 
I have found the best way to keep on top of them is to get as manny stalkers as you have high seats in the wood in my case 5 -6 all get in your seats and wait for the bangs the 1st time i did this we shot 5 and the second time we shot 3 ,we are going back on thursday eve for another go that will be the 1st time back since the last time 4 weeks ago ,so there should be a few moving about ,i do belive this is the best way to manage muntjac ,as if you were to be putting in time by your self it could take along time to shoot 8 munt jac this way i only need to put one or two trips to that wood a month leaving me more time to spend on other ground
 
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