Creating a Management Plan for a Whitetail Deer in a 20-Acre Woodland - Essay Sample

Introduction

A management plan is a blueprint of how activities should be run both daily as well as over the long-term period, which helps one to formalize his management structure, operations and also gives a definition to the said operation. It also guarantees a robust understanding of the direction to take in achieving the given objectives. This paper shall look into the management plan of a whitetail deer in a 20-acre woodland with 5 being wetlands.

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A Specie of the Deer

A deer is a ruminant mammal with antlers and having both two small and two large hooves in each foot. A white-tailed deer being in the family Cervidae and also the smallest member of the North American deer family is usually a cherished game animal that has become a pest in the US cities and Canada as well as the suburbs. During the summer heat, this specie of deer usually inhabits meadows and fields of coniferous forest stands, which provide excellent shelter for shade. The white-tailed deer is known to be an herbivore that grazes only on vegetation. Its stomach allows it to digest a varied diet, which includes twigs, leaves, nuts, fruits, grass, corn, alfalfa, and also lichens, not forgetting other fungi. It is primarily a nocturnal mammal that often becomes active during dusk and dawn but occasionally ventures out in the daylight hours. An adult white-tailed deer has reddish-brown coats in summer, which fade to a duller grayish-brown in winter.

A male deer known as the buck is well recognizable in the summer season, and it falls by its prominent set of antlers that grow annually and fall off during the winter season. The buck grows antlers, which bear several tines. During rut i.e., mating season, buck fights over the mating season, also called the rut, bucks fight over the region with its antlers to spare a match. Doe, a female deer, after a gestation period of seven months gives birth to one to three young ones called fawns, which have a reddish-brown coat with whitish spots which help them camouflage with the forest or environment. A white-tailed deer has a life span that ranges from six to fourteen years in captivity. However, the majority of deer don't reach that when in the wild due to diseases, hunting, and such collisions as an automobile. (Lopez et al. 2003). Description of the Acquired Property

I have acquired 20 acres of land in place, which will be suitable for the operation and management of the deer's growth, sustainability, and management, whereby 5 is wetlands. The management of deer requires quite a big piece of land with enough spacing and adequate allocation of the lands into different subsections significant for various activities as feeding, free movements, and inhabitation in times of harsh climatic conditions such as summer.

Resource Inventory

Resource inventory is the assessment and identification of the available resources in an area of study or operation. In most cases, a list is required in systems that go hand in hand with planning and management of operations, activities, or ideas. Agricultural producers, for instance, use resources such as capital, land, machinery, breeding stock, among other resources, to produce what is expected of them in the management or operational period. In this paper, the student identified and acquired 20 acres of land, 5 acres being wetlands. The woodlands will be the right places for the deer to get shelter in times of summer season to escape harsh conditions.

Objectives for the Property and Long Term Goals

Objectives are ends results that and individual strives to achieve by the help of a plan or a mission and vision statements. These statements define who or what something is and where it would want to be short i.e., in the short run or the long run. The student has an objective f rearing a white-tailed deer in the estimated 20-acre land, which is, according to him, subdivided for more natural placement of each operation. It is estimated that a small size foot acre of land will be used to plant corn, which the deer will eat. Native vegetation such as the woodlands, as pointed out earlier, will be used as a shed in times of summer to help the deer escape harsh climatic conditions.

Management Practices

Management can be said to be the judicious use of means to achieve a given goal. Management practices, therefore, involve the actions put in place to accomplish objectives, as stated in the management plan. Here, the student will employ various management practices to achieve the desired goal which is rearing a deer to carry out further studies on what they are and what the deer eats, the kind of environmental conditions that favor it, the diet and behavior among other areas that he or she would want to research on.

According to the paper details, the student will need a John Deere tractor and planters to get the job done effectively. This implies that a specialist who will operate this various equipment will as well be required. Other activities that do not require machinery will be carried out by use of the hand. Farm tools and equipment require good maintenance, and this means that there will be a need for spare parts and the fuel used to run these machines or oil lubricants to lubricate some parts to enable the machinery to stand the entire operation period and deliver quality results.

Equipment Needed To Get the Job Done

An equipment is any tool used to necessitate an activity and ensure there's work done. A John Deere tractor and planters will be needed to get the job done. John Deere tractor is a utility tractor that is built to give the best performance as one saves on fuel money and maintenance since it is designed to perform in the worst conditions of land that is invaded by excessive weeds. This also applies to the John Deere planters. They have led to an innovative way of carrying out planting activities that deliver an accurate seed spacing, proper seed to soil contact, which results in superior germination. It is outstanding technology today that many farmers employ.

Estimation of Cost and Time Frame

This activity will require much engagement to set goals with the help of this management plan. This means that a lot of concentration and resources will be required. When we say resources, it means such items as capital/financial resources, time resources, labor, land, and machinery. In terms of capital, this is the amount of money that will be required to purchase the 20 acres of land, hire/buy and set up plants and machinery, pay machine operators, buy corn seeds to plant, and pay the laborers. When estimated, it can, therefore, sum up to 800 US Dollars. The white-tailed species of deer has a gestation period of seven months, after which it gives birth to averagely one to three fawns or young ones. This, therefore, can be approximated to a period of three to five years of growth. That, therefore, means that the overall process will take approximately five and a half years.

Conclusion

A white-tailed deer, also known as Virginia deer is a ruminant mammal of the family Cervidae and is known for feeding on vegetation, corn, and lichens. It has a healthy lifestyle of four and a half years. The deer has a gestation period of seven months, after which it gives birth to young ones known as fawns. The management and taming a whitetail deer requires much attention and adequate resources such as finances, land, labor, and time which therefore implies that a person carrying out its management must be well equipped and prepared with such resources.

References

DeCalesta, D. S. (2017). Achieving and maintaining sustainable white-tailed deer density with adaptive management. Human-Wildlife Interactions, 11(1), 13. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.26077/cyh7-1288

Ijima, H., Fujimaki, A., Ohta, U., Yamamura, K., Yokomizo, H., Uno, H., & Matsuda, H. (2015). Efficient management for the Hokkaido population of sika deer Cervus Nippon in Japan: accounting for migration and management cost. Population ecology, 57(2), 397-408.Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10144-015-0478-1

Sternhagen, K. M. (2015). An evaluation of life-history parameters and management of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Red River Valley of northeastern North Dakota. Retrieved from https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd/1130/

Ramirez, S. (2016). Deer Management Strategies. Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS).Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1903/20110

Prager, K., Lorenzo-Arribas, A., Bull, H., Kvernstuen, M. S., Loe, L. E., & Mysterud, A. (2018). Social constraints in cross-boundary collaborative deer management. Ecology and Society, 23(4).https://www.jstor.org/stable/26796871