tending to hunting grounds

If you are lucky enough to control a piece of hunting ground let me share one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. Do not over hunt it. Any area that you intend to hunt should not be hunted so hard that the pressure causes all game to abandon it. So what does that mean?? According to John Darling, in his book "Air Rifle Hunting" "a Large Garden can support one good shoot in a fortnight". Large garden?? Fortnight?? He is European, English I think, and over there a large Garden seems to be about 5 acres. A fortnight is 14 days, or two weeks if you prefer. So that leaves the phrase "a good shoot". Well from a game management point of view, a good shoot would be the daily bag limit of everything that is in season, without removing so many animals that the area is emptied of wildlife. Various game management professionals quote a 20 to 30% harvest annually as a healthy number. 20% of my current rabbit population would be a hind quarter off of one rabbit, 20% of my squirrels is one squirrel. So no hunting here. At least not until after my next wildlife census.

The point of this is more to point out many peoples poor logic. If you think you can hunt enough game within a 10 or 20 acre area to feed a family you are mistaken. The game will leave, and even if they do not the population of game animals could not be sustained long enough to feed four people for more than a couple of weeks. I do believe hunting and trapping will provide some food, but this should not be the primary source of protein for you or your family.

Keith