Coues Sanctuary

[billrquimby]

I am afraid it's a matter of economics, not ethics. There obviously is a demand for this, or else such places wouldn't exist. It takes a large investment and at least ten years to develop a deer operation.

 

Whether or not it's "canned hunting" depends upon the size of the enclosure and the terrain. If that entire 6,500-acre ranch is high fenced (with no interior high fences) and has the typical terrain and cover that Coues deer inhabit, the deer inside that 10-square-mile area would never know they are inside a pen

 

Finding an individual deer would be damned tough in something that large, so it's safe to say they have a much smaller enclosure if they're guaranteeing various size antlers, up to and exceeding existing records.

 

The original Sanctuary in Michigan, which pioneered intense management of deer farming, consists of two enclosures, each about 640 acres, and each containing about 1,000 deer -- 600 or more of them bucks. The owners constantly cull inferior deer and annually remove roughly the same numbers of deer that are born. Each year there is an effort to catch fawns and mark them with small colored tags behind the ears so that guides will know from a distance exactly how old a buck is. Bucks are not shot until they are at last 4.5 years old.

 

As can be expected with that many deer confined to a relatively small area, there is a lot of fighting among the bucks during the rut -- and a large number of large bucks are killed when other bucks run up and jab battling bucks in their vitals with their antlers.

 

In the early years, the Purina Company stationed a biologist/nutritionist at the Sanctuary to develop special pellets to feed the Sanctuary's deer for maximum antler growth, based on the site's unique natural mineral content. With that many deer, the natural browse has been removed from the ground up to the height that deer can reach.

 

I suspect the owners of the place in Mexico have followed the Sanctuary's lead.

 

Bill Quimby

[shortpants]

Most of us here ay CWT. look at this and go , however, I would think this would appeal to all those hunters I see driving around all day on every hunt I go on. Now they can kill a record guaranteed but still don't have to leave the truck.

[TATAat27]

Makes me sick to see tose deer fenced in, or as they put it "predators fenced out". And growing antlers is just as sickening. I just don't agree with anyone who goes out and feeds deer junk so they can grow bigger antlers. Why don't you guys just scout/hunt harder, there are enough big deer out there, how are you ever gonna feel satisfied with your "trophy". To me the "trophy" is the hunt itself, sure everyone wants to bag a monster, but if you don't do any work for it how are you gonna get satifaction out of that? I just don't get it. I hunted hard this year and didn't find the buck I was looking for, so I passed on all the smaller bucks I saw and now I look forward to archery season. And even if I don't harvest anything, I still wouldn't trade it for one of them stupid hunts. You might as well just have them shoot it and mount it for you, at least that way you'll save on the airfare which is not provided.

[the breeze]

guadalajara is too far south for coues deer. coues deer only go down as far south as the sinaloa border.they probably have some sinaloa whitetail mixed in. what a joke. who are these jag offs from tucson booking this deal?

[Lance]

No word from Amanda yet? Man those deer are sooo wild they want you to be prepared to shoot up to 200 yards!

[COUESAZ]

Amandas hunt does not get over until this weekend right. As far as i know she is hunting with Scott and his family. It still may be a day or two before she gets on hear to check the forum.