QDMA Will Sponsor, Participate in 36th Annual Southeast Deer Study Group Meeting
OutdoorHub 02.21.13
The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) will participate in the 36th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Deer Study Group (SEDSG) in Greenville, S.C., Feb. 24-26, and is a major sponsor of the event.
The SEDSG is an annual meeting of deer biologists, managers, researchers and deer enthusiasts. It is hosted on a rotating basis by a different state wildlife agency’s deer management section, and the conference provides a venue for presenting the most recent research on deer biology and management. The 2013 meeting of the SEDSG will be hosted by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), and this year’s theme is “Challenges in Deer Research and Management in 2013.”
QDMA is a major sponsor of the 2013 event. In partnership with the South Carolina State Advisory Council of QDMA, ACE Basin Branch, Foothills Branch, Lowcountry Branch, Mid-Carolina Branch, Midlands Branch, A Wilbert’s Sons, Resource Management Service, Trophy Rock and Outdoor Underwriters, a combined sponsorship of $6,500 will be provided to the SEDSG.
Additionally, QDMA is sending members of its national office staff to the meeting to listen in for useful information to pass along to deer hunters and QDMA members. Follow QDMA on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheQDMA and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TheQDMA to get real-time updates from the SEDSG meeting. Two of the presentations will also come from QDMA staff members Kip Adams and Matt Ross.
Adams, QDMA’s Director of Education and Outreach and a certified wildlife biologist, will present on modern threats to white-tailed deer and deer hunting as presented in QDMA’s most recent Whitetail Report.
Ross, QDMA’s Certification Programs Manager, a certified wildlife biologist and licensed forester, will present on a QDMA-funded study that documents the changing land-use patterns and exurban development adjacent to a National Wildlife Refuge within a 45-minute commute to the Minneapolis metropolitan area. He will discuss land-use shifts from a rural to exurban area, the uneven deer harvest distribution that occurred in and around the Wildlife Refuge, and the possible implications for deer ecology and management.
The SEDSG was formed as a subcommittee of the Forest Game Committee of the Southeastern Section of The Wildlife Society, and the first SEDSG Meeting was held in 1977. QDMA founder Joe Hamilton, a wildlife biologist, has been attending since the earliest meetings when the Quality Deer Management (QDM) philosophy was little known and its supporters were in the minority of meeting attendees. Today, the majority of the session presentations are about Quality Deer Management, and two years ago QDMA received the SEDSG’s Career Achievement Award.
