Whether you use your land for livestock grazing , white-tailed deer management or both, it’s a good idea to have a handle on Texas’ fencing laws. We’ve all heard the saying, “good fences make for good neighbors,” but even good folks with pretty good fences can get sideways when it comes to disputes over unforeseen situations, property lines and “extra” livestock.
Have you ever wondered if a landowner is liable if his livestock get out and are hit on the road? Can a landowner make a neighbor chip in and and pay for repairs to a shared boundary fence? What should a property owner do when someone else’s cattle are on their land? Or what can I do about my neighbor’s tree limbs hanging over the fence and onto my property?
Texas Fence Law Answered
There will come a time for every Texas landowner when having some general knowledge about fencing laws will come in handy. Fortunately, a new publication titled Five Strands: A Landowner’s Guide to Fence Law in Texas is now available to help landowners make sense of some of the more common issues property owners face across the Lone Star State.
The best thing—this handbook was written in terms that normal people can understand. It is designed as a resource that can be thrown on the dash of a pick up along with a ranchers’ other important documents. This publication provides answers to common questions related to fence law that come up frequently for Texas landowners and livestock producers.
Below are a several examples from the handbook:
My neighbor’s cattle are on my land. How do I remove them?
The answer depends on whether this situation occurs in an open-range county or in one that has passed a stock law making it a closed range.
Lessee Liability?
Many Texas livestock producers lease the land they they run their livestock on. This presents a question of who is responsible for fencing the land the livestock run on–the landowner or the lessee? Absent an agreement allocating responsibility between the landowner and the lessee, these laws could apply to both the landowner and the lessee who runs the livestock on a ranch.
How do the adequate fence standards of the Agriculture Code apply?
The Texas Agriculture Code establishes the requirements for a “sufficient fence;” however, these fencing standards apply only in open-range counties where fences are meant to keep livestock “out” rather than “in.”17 These sufficient fence standards do not apply in a closed-range county, nor can they be used to determine negligence or liability in a roadway accident situation.
Clearing Brush to Build a Fence on a Boundary Line
Sometimes a landowner building a fence along a boundary line must clear brush on both his or her own property and the neighbor’s property. If this is necessary, the landowner should always seek permission from the neighbor before entering his or her property and before any brush management takes place.
Without such permission, entering a neighbor’s property and removing the brush could be considered trespassing and subject the acting landowner to damages. It is always better to ask for permission ahead of time. If permission is denied, the landowner may have to back the fence up on his or her property.
Cutting Down a Tree Hanging over a Property Line
Assume that a tree grows on the neighbor’s property, but the limbs and branches overhang another’s land. What rights do the parties have in that situation? In Texas, the location of the trunk of the tree determines who owns it, even if the roots or branches grow onto an adjoining neighbor’s land. A landowner has the right to trim or cut off the limbs or branches of boundary trees or brush that reach onto his or her property, as long as no damage to the other adjoining landowner occurs.
However, the limbs or branches can be cut back only to the property line. The tree’s owner is responsible for any damages caused to the adjacent owner from falling branches or roots. It is in the best interest of the tree’s owner to control the growth of the tree so it does not create a source of potential damage to the neighboring landowner.
There are many aspects to managing a white-tailed deer population, but once the basic concepts of population management and an understanding of white-tailed deer are in hand, implementing and effective management plan to achieve desired results can become reality. With all that said, science has never been able to stand in the path of public perception. Perception, after all, is reality. This is playing out with the Staten Island deer population in New York.
This site is dedicated to helping property owners interested in white-tailed deer management. The goal is to help people manage their land and the deer that live there. We regularly focus on management practices that can be implemented to successfully improve whitetail habitat and deer population parameters. The focus here is on techniques that work, but we would be remiss if we did not point out things that no one should do, not even with someone else’s money.
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Population Control on Staten Island: Is This the Plan?
The citizens of New York are about to have a lot of their hard-earned money wasted in an attempt to improperly “control” the Staten Island white-tailed deer population. Their plan involves sterilization of buck deer over a three year period with an expected cost of $2 million… for just the first year.
The Parks Department plans to sterilize hundreds of male deer to help manage Staten Island’s out-of-control and expanding herd, starting as soon as this fall’s rutting season if the plan is approved by the state.
“We do aim to get all of them in order to completely limit the reproduction,” said Sarah Aucoin, Chief of Wildlife and Education at Parks.
The three-year effort is expected to eventually reduce the borough herd 10 to 30 percent. The city would spend $2 million this first year, with the annual cost going down as fewer males are left to sterilize.
Mayor Bill de Blasio will ask the comptroller’s office to fast-track contracting for the endeavor this week. The chosen vendor and city will then apply for a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which regulates wildlife and must approve a control plan.
“We are moving ahead with a plan to manage the impacts of the deer population on Staten Island in a way that is smart, effective, and humane,” de Blasio said in a statement.
Deer Management: Assumptions Flawed
As I was reading the remainder of the article it was evident that the Staten Island deer management program was going awry. There were a lot of assumptions but, no measurable objectives other than they hoped to decrease the deer population by 10-30 percent lower in three years. Someone will make a lot of money (cha-ching) trapping and sterilizing deer, but throwing good money at a bad idea will not make it a good idea.
An improbable solution, no matter how expensive, will not address the growing deer population living on Staten Island. Let’s look at some assumptions made by NYC officials that need to be addressed:
1. “We do aim to get all of them [bucks] in order to completely limit the reproduction.” It has been assumed that contractors can actually put their hands on all of the bucks living on Staten Island. By the way, the island is almost 60 square miles.
First, there is no way to capture all of the bucks. Impossible. As you successfully sterilize bucks within the herd, the time and money it takes to capture the remaining bucks goes up exponentially as the number of untreated bucks declines. And, if you do not get them all the first year then the remaining bucks will breed the remaining does. Contractors would need to sterilize at least 90 percent of the buck herd in year one, otherwise all the work done during year one is for naught.
A short course on whitetail breeding ecology: A whitetail doe initially comes into estrus during the fall for a 2-3 day period. If she is not impregnated during the initial estrus period then she will continue to cycle every 28 days throughout the fall and winter until she is bred or her hormones make her stop. In short, a few less bucks will not impact the number of does impregnated but only the timing of when they are bred.
2. “Sterilization was chosen because Staten Island’s herd is mostly growing through reproduction, not migration.” The assumption here is that “other deer” will not move in and add to the island’s current deer population. Also assuming, again, that they will have a significant impact on the number of breeding bucks in year one.
White-tailed deer do not technically migrate, so this statement is true. Yes, reproduction is responsible for population increases. Unfortunately, the deer found living on and off of Staten Island do not recognize the same arbitrary boundaries that we do. There is a 100 percent chance that bucks living near, but not on, Staten Island will move in and breed does living on Staten Island during subsequent breeding seasons.
It is an Island, but it’s not necessarily a closed population. Whitetail arrived by swimming over from New Jersey and they will continue to do so. They will come from other areas bordering the island, too. The news about sterilization will not stop them.
3. “A 2014 aerial survey found 763 deer in Staten Island’s green space, though some ecologists think there may be more than 1,000 here now.” It’s assumed that 763 deer was the number of the deer in the population in 2014, but that is really only the number that were observed, actually counted. There have also been two additional years of reproduction.
There are way deer more than you think. Aerial surveys for wildlife are designed to work by observers counting animals in a given area, say 1 square mile, then interpolating those numbers to additional, similar areas that were not surveyed, such as another 10 square miles. Observers, however, do not see all of the animals.
This is inherently true for just about any type of wildlife survey because it is completely possible to miss animals that are present in the environment. Deer can stay bedded down, simply be out of view and can avoid detection by moving away from observers. Surveys are critically important for managing wildlife populations, but most biologists acknowledge that surveys typically result in an estimate of the “minimum population size,” for the reasons outlined above.
Depending on the survey method used, the estimated population can be significantly lower than the actual population. This is especially true for aerial surveys, where a number of factors must be considered. If surveyors observed 763 deer in 2014 then the Staten Island deer population consists of least 1,500 animals now. In short, the scope of the work is much larger than they think.
4. “The biggest adult bucks that mate with the most does would be sterilized first, followed by smaller, younger and less popular males.” It’s assumed that older bucks do 90 percent of the breeding.
All age classes of bucks participate in the rut. Mature bucks do breed more does than younger bucks, but the score is closer than most think. Research has found that older bucks (3 1/2+ years old) will actually sire about 50-70 percent of the fawns, but the percentage of fawns sired by younger bucks actually increases as their proportion increases within a buck population. Sterilization will prevent treated bucks from participating in the rut, but that gap will be quickly filled by untreated bucks, regardless of age.
It should also be pointed out that older bucks are smart animals with experience on their side, so they will be much more difficult to capture and treat. Contractors need to capture 90+ percent of the buck population every year for sterilization to be effective in a closed population, so my recommendation would be to not pass on any bucks, regardless of age. But the Staten Island deer population is not closed.
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Cost to Control Staten Island’s Deer Population
The first year of this three-year project is expected to cost $2 million. Assuming at least $1 million is set aside for each of the two subsequent years, that would put the 3 year project at a total costs of $4 million. Some have said there could be as many as 1,000 deer on the island. Officials hope to decrease the deer population by 10-30 percent over 3 years. That would be a total of 100-300 deer given the “perceived” population size.
Apparently, NYC is content with spending $13,300-$40,000 per deer to decrease the Staten Island deer population. They could use that money to help those less fortunate. And they could deliver them high protein, hunter-harvested venison, too.
Hunters are constantly on the lookout for animals while deer hunting, but this is not always the case while we’re driving. Most accidents, auto or otherwise, happen when we are not fully engaged in what we are doing. An accident is typically a result of being complacent or preoccupied with other stuff in our lives. Doing something successfully takes focus.
There are a multitude of things to distract us when driving on “down time” (ie. not hunting) as well as while we are heading to and from our favorite deer hunting grounds. We are even more prone to an automobile accident while conducting our normal activities , such as commuting to and from work, running to the grocery store or just picking up the kids after school.
Hunters are especially busy navigating winding roads, trying to keep at least one eye on the vehicle in front of us, evaluating podcast, and checking our hunting packs to make sure we didn’t forget our grunt call, rattling horns, and the like. There are also those occasional text messages, even though we know we should be focused on the road in front of us… as well as the deer!
Don’t get distracted while driving, just pull over and do what you need to do. Easy to say, more difficult to actually put into practice.
We often know which stretches of road are the “hot spots,” the places were deer typically cross back and forth across public roadways. State highway department’s have even marked many of them for automobile drivers using the readily-identifiable deer crossing sign, but it’s the places where we don’t expect deer that can get us into trouble.
The Experts on Deer-Auto Collisions
Source: U.S. drivers are just as likely to have a claim involving a collision with deer, elk or moose than they were last year, according to new claims data from State Farm. The odds drivers will have a claim from hitting one of those animals is 1 out of 169, the same as it was in 2014. That likelihood more than doubles during October, November and December, when deer collisions are most prevalent.
Update: Data for Deer-Auto Accidents for 2017-18
For the ninth year in a row, West Virginia tops the list of states where an auto insurance claim is most likely to occur because of a collision involving a deer. The odds that a driver in the Mountain State will have a claim actually improved to 1 in 44, up from 1 in 39 in 2014, an 11.4% decrease. Hawaii rounds out the bottom of the list also for the ninth year in a row with odds of 1 in 8,765.
Peak Times for Deer Accidents
“Periods of daily high-deer movement around dawn and dusk as well as seasonal behavior patterns, such as during the October-December breeding season, increase the risk for auto-deer collisions,” said Ron Regan, executive director for the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.
“Changes in collision rates from year to year are a reflection of changing deer densities or population levels – more deer in a given area increases the potential for collision and other costs associated with whitetail. Deer populations are also affected by conditions such as new or improved roads with higher speeds near deer habitat, winter conditions, and other related factors.”
So, whether you’re just running some errands or heading out to hopefully bag a deer, make certain to keep an eye out for those four-legged critters. The is especially important to remember during the whitetail breeding season since bucks increase their movements substantially. Deer can show up in some very unusual places, and one of those places does not need to be your radiator.
It’s much better to bag a deer with your bow or gun rather than your vehicle, and it’s a lot less costly. Deer-auto collisions can equate to big costs in terms of property damage, but an accident could also cost someone’s life. It really does not matter how many deer are hit by automobiles each year in the area where you live, as long as you are not the one hitting, or alternatively, being hit. Slow your ride down, be careful and good luck out there, whether hunting or driving.
What makes a person want to hunt an animal, whether it be a squirrel or a white-tailed deer? Admittedly, it’s strange to imagine myself never having experienced hunting. But if I was an adult that had never gone hunting, would I feel a need to learn more about it, try it, or would I even understand it?
It’s tough to say because again, I really cannot imagine myself not hunting. It’s an activity that goes hand-in-hand with the way I was raised from the beginning of my life. I guess we, like many generations before, were locavores. With the food industry now a big business, hunting and gathering food locally is now coming back to roost, so to speak.
For those persons never exposed to deer hunting or even small game hunting, whether it be as a child or a young adult, it would take a lot of initiative to gear up, get out there and try it all on their own sometime later in life. People definitely do it. It takes a lot to be a self-starter, regardless of the activity.
Hunting an Innate Action
The act of hunting is definitely something natural within humans, but it’s not necessarily easy to start doing—at least not in today’s world. Let’s face it, hunting is much more of a financial commitment today than it was in the past. Even a just a few decades ago, before hunting leases were the norm, everyone at least knew someone that knew someone were a person could do some sort of hunting.
Now, hunting land translates into income for landowners, so in some cases that means even children of landowners are not allowed to hunt the family land.
There are still public lands, but depending on when and where a first-time hunter went, well, that could ruin a person for life. There are a lot of great public hunting lands out there, too, especially the managed state and federal properties.
Locavores Hunt for Fresh Foods
Source: “Millennials are now our society’s largest group, but they don’t participate in hunting at the same rates as baby boomers,” Warnke said. “Meanwhile, the boomers are aging and dropping out of the hunting population. Their losses wouldn’t be so noticeable if more millennials started hunting. In business terms, the hunting community leaves a lot of money on the table by not engaging more millennials.”
Warnke said millennials represent a great opportunity for hunting, much as digital cameras once did for Kodak.
“People forget that the driving force in digital photography was a Kodak employee who Kodak ignored,” Warnke said. “Kodak didn’t embrace change, and look what happened to it. We can’t afford to ignore millennials, especially when so many of them are open to hunting, including females.”
Warnke said half the millennials in adult “Learn to Hunt” programs are young women. That trend is also apparent in DNR license sales. In 2006, females made up 7.66 percent of the state’s roughly 645,000 gun-deer hunters. By 2014, female participation accounted for 10.6 percent of gun-hunters.
Female participation rates for gun-deer hunting are increasing fastest among millennials. For instance, female participation never exceeded 20 percent for any age group until 2007, when girls represented 20.6 percent of all 12-year-old gun-deer hunters. In 2014, girls represented nearly 26 percent of 12-year-old gun-deer hunters.
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Our Hunting Heritage
Hunting is something that can be taught, but it’s also something that can be learned. Hunting is a natural part of every animal, including humans. It’s in our DNA from the beginning of our lives. Like other activities millennials choose to engage in, it takes experience to become a proficient hunter, but we all start with the same amount of experience, zero.
In a time when many our concerned about our hunting heritage, it’s refreshing to hear about people with little or no hunting experiences taking to the outdoors. These new hunters join the rank and file and I welcome their participation. Historically, hunting has always been an activity of locavores, before we had a term for simply living off the land.
It’s a good idea that we return to the land. Many are far removed, to the detriment of our society. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements.” Call these new men and women taking to the field millennials or locavores or whatever you wish, I’ll simply refer to them as hunters.
Typically, we hear or see whitetail does snort, but do bucks blow too. In fact, bucks will blow at you in the same situation as does, but older bucks do not always reveal their location by making such a racket.
White-tailed deer are one of the most hunted game animals in North America. They also have strong populations found throughout the US, with numbers in many cases exceeding the optimal carrying capacity of the landscape. When deer numbers are inflated, it’s tough on both native plants as well as a deer herd, but white-tailed deer keep on doing what they do. Deer are survivors.
Whitetail are keen animals. They have several senses that help keep them safe, but they also give physical and auditory cues to other deer in the area. This article discusses one of the sounds that whitetail deer use to communicate to one another, the snort or blow.
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What is a Blow or Snort Sound?
To a hunter, the sound of a buck or doe blowing is the worst sound in the woods. The sound means something is out of place. Deer know what the woods are supposed to smell like and a loud blow, snorting sound means they know something is there that should not be. Often times, hunters realized that they have been “busted.”
Every deer within earshot of the deer blowing is on full alert and is probably going to leave the area. Game over for that day or maybe even a few days.
The sound of a deer snorting is quite unique. The sound is created by deer forcefully expelling air from their nose. It sounds exactly like someone saying as loud as they can, “Shhhhhhhhhh,” as if telling you to be quiet, but incredibly loud.
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When Will Deer Blow at You?
White-tailed deer have incredible sniffers on them. Bucks, does and fawns can smell really well with their nose, which is their best way of detecting predators, intruders. If sitting still, deer are much more likely to smell you they see you. Once they smell you, get ready for a loud snort!
Deer snort to tell the intruding person or predator that they are aware or their presence and also to let other deer know that something is awry. From my experience, does are much more likely to snort than bucks. Bucks do blow too, but younger bucks are more likely to snort than older bucks.
It seems older bucks are more averse to blowing and snorting because they just want to get out of there. So although bucks can and will snort, mature bucks are more concerned with getting away from the intruder than providing the intruder with its location.
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I’ve observed this behavior a number of times while hunting. When an older buck traveling downwind of me picks up my scent, rather than blowing to alert other deer he simply slips back into the woods in the direction he came (where it is still presumably safe). I’m sure this happens more often than hunters realize because in dense cover we can not see very far, but deer can pick up scent for a long ways downwind.
This is why deer hunters employ scent control strategies. Hunters try to minimize human scent and typically position themselves downwind of traveling and feeding deer. Deer can not smell you if your scent is headed the opposite direction.
Where Will This Happen?
A deer smells a variety of scents in its environment. Some are perceived as okay, some no so much. A whitetail knows which smells are normal and which ones are out of place. This is one reason why a deer living in an urban environment may not snort at you, but a young buck out in the country will blow at you 300 yards away. Different environments.
There is also a certain “scent threshold” that must be exceeded to alarm a deer. A faint scent and a deer knows there is something way out there, somewhere, but likely not a threat. However, a nose-full of human scent and the deer knows you are there, very close, and is suddenly on high alert. Get ready!
In closing, white-tailed deer use the action/process of blowing and snorting to alert both the intruder and other deer in the area. Both does and bucks do blow when they smell something out of place and they will blow at you, especially when you are in close proximity and they can smell, but not see you.
