Lindsay Thomas

Aug 28, 2024 | deerassociation.com | Lindsay Thomas

Some deer hunters call it a “dead zone” or “dead space.” Some call it “no man’s land.” Most say it is an empty space located below the spine and above the lungs of a deer, and some talk about completely different locations. Is any of it real? No matter what you call this mysterious void or where you think it is, there’s an easy way to see the truth with your own eyes the next time you field-dress a deer.

Aug 21, 2024 | deerassociation.com | Lindsay Thomas

How many does should you harvest? It’s a perennial question for our organization and many deer hunters. Here are 12 signs to look for that indicate you need to take more than you have been. Managing deer populations for optimal health is about balance, as depicted in the scene above. If deer numbers are in balance with available forage and cover, or if available forage outweighs deer numbers, little or no doe harvest is necessary. But few hunters or deer populations are in that condition.

Aug 7, 2024 | deerassociation.com | Lindsay Thomas

In November 2022, 14-year-old Cooper Courtright of Louisiana killed a 5½-year-old buck whose ears were his most prominent and memorable feature. Both drooped to the sides of the buck’s head as if they were pinned straight down. Cooper’s dad Jess contacted the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, who shipped the buck’s head immediately to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia vet school.

Jul 22, 2024 | deerassociation.com | Lindsay Thomas

Learning about chronic wasting disease is a challenge. Even when we’re receiving accurate information, it can be misleading simply due to the complexity of this deer disease. Conveying new information in a brief headline can change the nature of the information and how we receive it, creating bad news out of good. I saw a recent example in this headline: “North Carolina finds 13 new CWD Cases.” That sounds bad, right?

Jul 16, 2024 | deerassociation.com | Lindsay Thomas

Hemorrhagic disease is a phantom enemy of deer. Known to hunters more commonly as EHD and bluetongue, this family of viruses strikes unpredictably and sporadically, hitting deer hard in some areas, lightly in others, or not at all. It often skips years or even decades before hitting the same area again. We know to look for it in late summer and early fall, ironically almost the same months as hurricane season, but we have no EHD radar that provides early warning or a likely landfall.