....and his genes have been passed on since his first born doe/buck fawn. A typical buck to doe ratio is 5 to 1. A 7 year old buck probably has bred 50 does or more in his lifetime. He has sons breeding does and daughters bearing fawns. The question is, what genes is that buck passing down other than big antlers? That's the only reason he has been allowed to live. In normal animal husbandry, you selectively breed for more than one trait. You not only know the sire's strengths or positive genes, but his negative traits. How do we know if that buck with nice horn we are passing on for 6 years is not throwing negative traits like poor eyesight, poor sense of smell or hearing? How do we know he is not producing offspring with bad hips or club feet? We don't. But it don't matter if he can not see, smell or hear the predator pursuing him(Human or other), much less if he can outrun it. He may be passing on genes that make his offspring more susceptible to disease, poor health and birth defects. Still, all in all, that might make it easier to harvest his horn.
I do not have a problem with letting little bucks walk. I do it all the time. Just as I give those with more potential, more time to mature. But I do wonder what this new infatuation with big horn and indiscriminate breeding based on horn size will do for the average deer herd in the wild. While on deer farms and high fence ranches, the availability to bring in other big horned deer to breed will help negate negative gene traits, in the wild we do not have that option. We are not really letting the process of natural selection do what it does. Just as letting deer walk after it makes a major mistake dumbs down the herd. One only has to watch a deer hunting show on T.V. and watch how a mature bucks looks at the hunter with little or no alarm before it is shot. It is not the skill of the hunter, but the experience of the buck that has safely walked by a human at short range for 6 years without the smallest inkling of a threat....till he has finally been judged big enough to shoot. Used to be big bucks only got big in the wild, because they were smart. They made a mistake early in life and they usually paid the ultimate price. Now, as long as they have potential and their home range is within property hunted by trophy hunters, they don't have to be smart. They just have to be quick to the baitpile or mineral lick so they can make the most of their potential. Because we all know, it is only the size of the horn that makes a true trophy.
The old adage, what came first, the chicken or the egg can be asked about B&C and the overall conservation movement in America. Lots of animals in the country that are not deemed "trophy" animals that have propagated mainly because of conservation, and not because they are potential B&C record book animals. The Passenger Pigeon went extinct and the American Bison almost went extinct in the same time frame as the B&C inception. Many believe they were what aroused the public interest in the "new" conservation movement. It also is in the same time frame as when Teddy signed the Antiquities Act and created the USFS, both to preserve and conserve habitat that was also being raped by greed. IOWs, IMHO, while Trophy Hunting may have helped some American Wildlife, to make the general statement it is what saved all of American Wildlife from extinction is questionable.
Again, just my humble opinion.
