Interview with QDMA’s New England/Canada Regional Director
First off I want to show what the Quality Deer Management Association is all about.
The QDMA promotes:
- Safe and ethical hunting.
- Adherence to wildlife and trespass laws.
- Adequate harvests of adult does.
- Restraint in harvesting young bucks.
- Hunter involvement in education and management.
- Cooperation with wildlife biologists and enforcement officers.
- Education of hunters and non-hunters toward a better understanding of wildlife management.
- Stewardship and appreciation of all wildlife.
Rick - Today I had the honor of speaking with the New England/Canada Regional Director of the QDMA Mr. Mathew Ross who lives in the great state of New Hampshire and who graciously took time to answer a few questions even though he was getting ready to leave for Quebec, Canada to do a seminar on Food Plots. I appreciate your time and your willingness to preserve our hunting heritage and promote Quality Deer Management.
Matt - You are very welcome and I am pleased to answer whatever questions that you may have.
Rick - First I would like to ask How long have you been working for the QDMA?
Matt - I started working for the QDMA back in May of 2006
Rick - What would you say is the most favorite part of your job?
Matt - I would have to say meeting new hunters and talking with them about quality deer management, doing what we can to create a healthy balanced deer herd and talking about our environment and what we can do to preserve it.
Rick - That leads me to my next question and that is What type of seminars do you do?
Matt - I travel all over New England doing seminars about wildlife habitat, forestry, food plots, managing what is already in your habitat area. I have four basic categories that I talk about and that is 1.) Habitat Management, 2.) Herd Management, 3.) Herd Monitoring and 4.) Hunter Management. I also like to talk about aging live deer and helping hunters to determine if that deer is old enough to harvest or young enough to leave alone.
Rick - I understand the philosophy that the QDMA lives by and it’s importance of balancing the deer herd. Do you feel the QDMA’s approach is working?
Matt - I feel it is working even on a national scale. The QDMA has over 17 million acres that are practicing Quality Deer Management across the country. That includes working with food plots enriching the existing habitats and deer management, which is having hunters concentrate on harvesting more Doe’s and letting the younger buck’s grow to full maturity.
Rick - I see you are also a Wildlife Biologist and a Licensed Forester, How long have you been doing that?
Matt - For about four years now. Before I came to work for the QDMA I was working as an apprentice for a Forestry and Wildlife company and some of my duties work supervising logging operations, marking timber so as not to destroy or endanger wildlife habitat. All that was working toward my degree.
Rick - I was reading about the “REACH” program and it sounds very interesting. Can you tell me how long that has been in effect and how it has been working?
Matt - It is a brand new program which has taken some time to put together, as a matter of fact the last couple sections of the program which are Certify and Hunt we just implemented to past month. As you know “REACH” stands for,
- Research – Fund whitetail research projects related to Quality Deer Management.
- Educate – Expand educational activities for QDMA members and the general public.
- Advocate – Increase the QDMA’s involvement in whitetail hunting and management issues.
- Certify – The QDMA’s individual and property QDM certification programs.
- Hunt – The QDMA’s National Mentoring and Hunting program.
Rick - Do you have any other programs that you have coming up in the future?
Matt - We have a program that has not started yet but will be soon which iscalled Cyber Deer for hunter education. It will be like shooting in 3 dimensional which can teach shot placement and shot trajectory. More will be mentioned in the days to come.
Rick - What would you say attracts hunters and non-hunters alike to the QDMA?
Matt - I would have to say two things in particular stand out. 1.) This would be that people enjoy the aspect of creating food plots for the deer and wildlife in general. 2.) It is creating a overall healthy and properly managed deer herd.
Rick - Last question I have is as a Wildlife Biologist and Regional Director for the QDMA how would you say the deer population is in New England?
Matt - From what I have seen in all my travels the herd in New England appears to be healthy and on a gradual rise in numbers. It appears to be as good if not better than twenty years ago.
Rick - Well Matt it was nice meeting you and I want to Thank You for taking the time to talk with me and I wish you and the QDMA luck in your adventures.
Matt - It was my pleasure and I hope to meet you in person when I come to Connecticut for a Deer Management seminar on Sunday August 26, 2007 at the Nutmeg State Branch of the QDMA in Oxford, Connecticut.
Disclaimer - The above dialogue is not exact quotes, and is paraphrased by the interviewer.
[...] been diligent about getting interviews with people in the industry. Late last week he was able to get an interview over the phone with Mr Mathew Ross, New England/Canada Regional Director of the Quality Deer [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Great interview Rick! Keep up the outstanding work.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am