How accurate is this map???

[TAM]

I'm guessing that most everyone has seen this map/chart before. It's been on this site for years. My question is how accurate do you think it is for the area you hunt? I've often found myself looking at this map before I scout new areas or after I've had a chance encounter with a coues in an area I didn't think held any. The map is also dated 1990 and nearly 19 years old, so I'm sure things have changed some. So what do you all think?

 

In my opinion the core areas for the areas I frequent are pretty accurate. It's the areas on the fringe that seem more questionable. It seems to me that the areas listed with lower populations in many cases seem higher than indicated on the map.

 

[desertdog]

I have always wondered about maps like this one myself. Not because I questions the people putting it together. But because counting any kind of wild life not to mention the coues deer seems to be difficult. I have always wondered how do you know that you re not counting the some deer. I was talking to a Game and Fish officer a few years back and he was saying that it is kind of an imperfect science, kind of like best guess.

[firstcoueswas80]

I think it is a little light on the population. Down south, in 36b if I sit in one spot and see any less that 25 +/- deer a day, it is a slow day!

[IHunt2live]

I would say thats its WAS pretty close. Look at the date on it. its 18 years old. Yes measuring density and numbers of deer is an "imperfect" science but its been done for so long, tested in many different ways that it fairly accurate.

[Huntaholic]

I don't know how accurate the deer density is but I know the distribution is off. There's a couple spots were I see a good number of coues that aren't even labeled on that map. I hope all their data their using isn't 18 years old.

 

Hey firstcoueswas80 thanks for the heads up on 36b. I never knew there was that many deer there. 25 deer a day a bad day... Wow looks like I found a new unit to hunt.

[bowsniper]

I spent a lot of time transposing this map to topo maps and then scouting the areas. So far, I would say that it has been maybe 50% accurate for the areas I have scouted. I was a little disappointed. I have looked for the original source of the map, but never found it. Amanda, any idea what G&F publication this map came from?

 

Mark

[billrquimby]

There is a rough canyon near Greer where I know there are whitetails, and it's not indicated on the map. I doubt that there are more than a dozen of them in any given year, though, and it's far from where whitetails usually are found. If I were creating a map, and knew that little population existed, I wouldn't bother to note it.

 

Bill Quimby

[CouesWhitetail]

I spent a lot of time transposing this map to topo maps and then scouting the areas. So far, I would say that it has been maybe 50% accurate for the areas I have scouted. I was a little disappointed. I have looked for the original source of the map, but never found it. Amanda, any idea what G&F publication this map came from?

 

Mark

 

 

You didn't look very hard then Bowsniper.

 

I listed the orginal publication right next to the map on that page.

 

"The map on the left shows the distribution of Coues whitetail in Arizona and is provided courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The map is from the AGFD publication entitled "General Ecology of Coues White-tailed Deer in the Santa Rita Mountains". The map doesn't include Coues on Native American Reservations."

 

It was hyperlinked to the publication order page on AGFD, but now they no longer have it on their website. So your best bet might be to call someone like Jim Heffelfinger of AGFD in Tucson and ask him if he knows where some extras are. Richard Ockenfels (the main researcher on that publication) retired and therefore isn't available to ask.

 

Amanda

[SilentButDeadly]

I'd say that there are some changes; such as in Coue's moving down lower in elevation to take over areas abandoned by muleys (since their decline). I heard a story about how Saguaro East used to have nothing but Muleys along the Desert loop drive, but now all they see are Coue's.

 

T

[IHunt2live]

I'd say that there are some changes; such as in Coue's moving down lower in elevation to take over areas abandoned by muleys (since their decline). I heard a story about how Saguaro East used to have nothing but Muleys along the Desert loop drive, but now all they see are Coue's.

 

T

 

I talked with the biologist at Saguaro East and he told me the same thing. I talked with another biologist that said he was called out to take a deer out of Rita Ranch area that was disoriented and hanging out in peoples yards and it was a coues.