Bergmann's "Rule" or genetics?

Better access to food and medicine has certainly played a role in the process.
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Most certainly. One reason young girls and boys mature at an earlier age than they did years ago. Just another sign that Mother Nature is a lot more complicated than most folks think. Scientist believe non-African modern man is a hybrid between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Most all of us Caucasians have about 2% of Neanderthal DNA. Still has nuttin' to do with big deer.

Food and health does play a big part of the overall size of deer within their genetic sub-species, but it does not explain why deer in certain Northern Latitudes have a overall larger average body size, even tho food is only readily available for a short amount of time and the harsh winters make it difficult to stay healthy and find water that is necessary for them to live. This is where Bergmann's rule comes into play, along with evolution. Larger body size means less surface to mass ratio and less heat loss......thus larger bodied animals stay warmer in cold weather and vice versa. This is why are Key deer so small, when they have great weather and available food/water all year round. Their small bodies lose heat more rapidly and thus, they stay cooler which is more important in their environment than staying warm. Same goes for Texas deer. One could force feed a buck Key Deer all the food and minerals it could stand, and still not end up with a deer that weighs as much as a Wisconsin Buck. Yes this is genetics, but genetics that have been formed thru evolution. Now one can assume that with the advent of deer farming, the transporting of deer all over the country for breeding and genetics, that many of the evolutionary traits of the local deer herds will be lost. Look at what's happening out West with the interbreeding of whitetail and mule deer.
 
I blame boys and girls maturing earlier on a lot more chemicals they are exposed to in food and the water. The only thing I saw happen from trying to move and breed large deer is CWD in this state. I remember the huge rabies outbreak here in the north east. Raccoons brought up from down south and stocked by coon hunters. Rarely does anything good come from "Giving nature a hand".
 
The only thing I saw happen from trying to move and breed large deer is CWD in this state. I remember the huge rabies outbreak here in the north east. Raccoons brought up from down south and stocked by coon hunters. Rarely does anything good come from "Giving nature a hand".
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I tend to agree Gunplummer. Wisconsi's CWD has also been blamed on Deer Farming for Trophy Bucks. While I have no problem with giving Mother Nature a hand, it seems to be when we try and improve on her is where we mess up. I have no problem with the Wild Turkey restoration efforts that have been so successful in our state and the restocking of native fish in our lakes and streams. But our native Brookies have suffered for many years from competition of German Browns and our waters are full of carp from folks that were only trying to "improve" on Mother Nature. Pure White Pine stands that were replanted with Norways after harvesting with the idea they would be a "better choice". The draining of "useless" wetlands without concern for how much good those "useless" areas do....and now selective breeding for trophy racks. I wonder if Pope&Young/Boone&Crockett will make new categories for these new artificially produced Monsters and what other detrimental side effects we will see, besides CWD.
 
Since this thread started I've done alot of googling and talked to some of the higher educated people in my family. I'm going to try to keep this short because I have limited knowledge and can't explain it all in detail.

From what I've read there are 16 subspecies of deer. Some say more some say less but that is the overall consensus. In the same article one person said that in Virginia alone they restocked with 11 different subspecies of whitetail. But after all the reading I've done it boils back down to the size and structure of the deer is bound by food and weather in that area. DNA shows they are all basically the same makeup.

Now throw humans in the mix. We all share some DNA because we are all human but we break down from there. My cousin is a cardiologist and married to a orthopedic. My cousin also works with the medical examiner alot. The medical examiner stated that used to he could look at a pile of bones and tell you ethnic group, sex, and age of the bones. With all the interracial breeding happening these days it isn't so easy. But it has also opened up diseases that are normally contained to certain ethnic groups.

So if you transport deer from one state to another and they breed with the existing population that are more immune to the area diseases, what is going to happen? I don't think we are gona have mutated deer but mutated diseases are expected.

Instead of all this money being spent on the biggest racks couldn't somebody spend a Lil and come up with a good healthy deer that could thrive anywhere?
 
Instead of all this money being spent on the biggest racks couldn't somebody spend a Lil and come up with a good healthy deer that could thrive anywhere?
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.........that's kinda the point Boogershooter. No need to. Mother Nature already has thru evolution. Bergmann's rule is part of that equation. It's just climate and food supply will dictate which animals live and pass on their genes, thus after a while that "deer that could live anywhere" will evolve to live better within that ecosystem. Modern Hunters are not really interested in healthy deer that can live anywhere......only with the size of the rack.
 
Pennsylvania has been beating that dead horse for years. This state used to be a prime pheasant hunting area. All kinds of things were blamed for the decline. It went so fast I will never believe it was not a disease. Right around that time there were millions of chickens being slaughtered trying to stop some form of a oriental bird flu. The PA Game Commission has been trying to restock and restart various breeds of pheasant for 30 years. Our deer population is a mess from listening to "Educated people". Sometimes you should just leave well enough alone.
 
The spread of disease such as cwd and different types of bird flu's are always going to happen. As some animals evolve to be immune to some things and it looks like the worry for particular diseases is just about over, somehow it mutates or evolves itsself. Look at all the crops being grown now days. They are created in labs to be resistant to drought and diseases that normally affect them. Alot of people are blaming this on the decline of bees. I was somewhat being sarcastic at the end of my last post. Let's just hope the smart people are truely looking out for these things and not just growing the best crops or best specimens of a species. Anytime we change things in nature there will be a new problem we have to deal with.
 
I had to look-up the shoe store x-ray.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope


I imagine at some point a chef made mercury filled truffles for children.
No one else interested in what happens when you take a breeding population f small southern deer and release them in a cold northern farm state? I feel there could be some absurd sized deer and ridiculous racks where the genes weren't bred out due to being environmentally limited.
 
I'm speculating...that a mature whitetail buck that has no brow tines, will spread his genes that have his male sires grow without brow tines; unless his mate has genes that favor brow tines --- In that case...it would be a toss-up on whether his male sires have brow tines or not.
 
This state used to be a prime pheasant hunting area. All kinds of things were blamed for the decline.
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So the introduced, non-native pheasants are having a tough time of it after being introduced in the very late 1800s from Asia? http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/...rooster-stockings-are-up/stories/201410190135

The PA Game Commission has been trying to restock and restart various breeds of pheasant for 30 years. Our deer population is a mess from listening to "Educated people". Sometimes you should just leave well enough alone.
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It was a lot of those "Educated people" who are the reason you still have a deer population, who pressed for stiffer hunting regulations that kept deer from being wiped out by the general population. We can't just leave well enough alone because we are a big part of the problem.

Modern Hunters are not really interested in healthy deer that can live anywhere......only with the size of the rack.
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Which is really interesting because a large rack ("selected for" trait) is what helps make bucks successful within their population, but a large rack is what makes them a target to be selected against in their population.
 
Not true. A large racked buck is not always the "Bull of the woods". I don't care what the biologists say, I have seen different.

Farming killed off the Pheasant? Every farmer in PA suddenly updated their farming practices in what, two or three years? What hose crap. I lived on the border of Bucks and Lehigh county for years. There are crop and dairy farms all over the place. Horse farms scattered all over. Pipelines and power lines. Plenty of crops, wooded areas, and grassy places to nest. No hunting on a lot of it. That is the best BS they could come up with?
 
Which is really interesting because a large rack ("selected for" trait) is what helps make bucks successful within their population, but a large rack is what makes them a target to be selected against in their population.
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This may have been true in the past, and what originally amde large racked bucks desirable by hunters, but it is not true in today's "grow a rack" mentality. Used to be in the wild, in order for a buck to mature and get to trophy size it took a combination of smarts and luck. Not only did he have to survive predators(both wild and human) but he had to survive the fighting of other deer in order to breed, plus in Northern latitudes(where the biggest sized bucks came from) had to survive severe winters. nowadays, big racked bucks are grown and nurtured. They are protected from predators and not shot till they are mature and/or deemed genetically inferior. They only learn where the feeder is at and no longer look at humans in the woods as a threat, but as food and protection. Bucks that years ago would have been shot by making the mistake of showing themselves to be seen during daylight, are now trained to come out during daylight hours by automated feeders. They are used to walking by humans and not being threatened until that one day when someone deems their antlers big enough. Humans are helping evolution by creating dumb deer that have forgot how to forage in the woods and evade predators. Their racks are no longer signs of being the biggest and the baddest, only window dressing. In areas where deer are truly wild and hunting pressure high, small racked bucks with dark horns are the most successful within that population.
 
I can't argue with that. I have hunted WV for over 20 years, and it has taken a beating since I started going down there. The "Hunters" want deer management like we have in PA. There have always been big deer in both states, but as buck460xvr mentioned, it was near impossible to kill them legally. I often find huge tracks on public land in certain areas, yet nobody ever sees them. The idea that everyone is going to kill a big racked buck is just stupid. The only way that will happen is if the deer are raised half tame, as already mentioned.
 
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