Thursday, March 06, 2008
Record deer kill: is that good or bad?
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
“What is the difference between a road-killed deer and a road-killed deer biologist? There are usually skid marks in front of the deer.”
Posted above the computer of Matt Knox
Matt Knox isn’t one to become infatuated over record deer kills. He made that clear when I met him for the first time in the fall of 1992, just after he was hired as the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ deer biologist.
At that time, Virginia’s deer population was on a boom and I was writing about a record kill nearly every season, which made exciting copy for readers who longed to see a deer behind every tree.
Knox told me the records were about to stop.
“What?”
Records, he said, don’t necessarily mean that the deer herd is in good shape. Fact is, they can point to a deer herd that it out of control, which is bad news because the result can be excessive deer damage and poorly developed animals.
Under the guidance of Knox, Virginia’s deer management plan in most instances has been to stabilize the herd, but occasionally a record pops up. Like during the recent 2007-08 season, when hunters reported killing 241,576 deer. That was a 7-percent increase over the previous season and roughly 4,500 deer above the old record set in 2003.
“Good news or bad?” I asked Knox.
“The record deer kill would have been bad news if the antlered buck kill had been way up,” he said.
In reality, the buck kill was up just slightly while the doe kill increased an impressive 13 percent. Since the record kill was fueled by a huge doe kill, “it is actually good news,” said Knox.
The 2007-08 season is destined to be remembered as the first year since 1947 -- when figures were first kept -- that more does were reported killed than antlered bucks. The number of does killed was 109,493, compared to 109, 275 antlered males. Male fawns, called button bucks, numbered 22,808. This placed the doe kill at 45.3 percent of the total. (Figures could change slightly as additional deer are added to the kill).
Knox said there are no problems with record kills in the future as long as they are the result of a record doe kill.
“It may take a decade or so to get there, but I would like to see does exceed 50 percent of the harvest on a sustained annual basis,” he said.
The 13-percent increase in the doe kill came at a time when there weren’t any new regulations to stimulate the antlerless harvest. That won’t be the case next year, which will highlight several new regulations designed to boost the female kill. In eight counties, for the first time hunters will have to earn the right to kill a second buck by first killing a doe.
Knox hopes this earn-a-buck concept will send a message across the state about the importance of killing an adequate number of does. It has been a long, hard journey for game officials to convince some hunters that it isn’t just all right to kill a doe, it can be the best thing you do for the herd and for hunting.
It may be equally challenging to convince deer hunters that the herd doesn’t just need to be stabilized, it must be reduced.
“I think we have been upfront with what we are trying to do. I would like to see us get the total deer kill back around 200,000 or less,” said Knox.
The question, will hunters tolerate a significantly lower kill? That hasn’t gone over well in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“I do not think hunters will get nervous about the doe kill number or level, but we will hear from them if we are successful in reducing deer numbers. If the deer kill begins to fall, I hope we will not over react and become conservative,” Knox said.
FACTS:
>Some 57 percent of the deer kill was checked by telephone the past season, the highest ever. The phone-check service was available for the first time in 2004, when it was used by 44 percent of the deer hunters. “I may never be able to prove it, but truly believe that we are getting a higher percentage of deer checked with the new system,” Knox said. “We have made it easy and simple for hunters to comply with our checking requirements.”
>Hunters using crossbows reported killing 8,549 deer, up 21 percent from last year, but still only 4 percent of the total. The bow kill was 17,335, but that was just a 1-percent increase from the previous year. More than 20,000 crossbow licenses were sold and Knox believes about half of them were purchased by hunters new to the archery season. He looks for growth in crossbow hunting to level off.
>Muzzleloaders killed 55,434 deer, up 6 percent. This was 23 percent of the total. Look for this kill to increase next year when an extra week is added to the muzzleloading season west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
>The top-five deer kill counties were Bedford, 8,270; Southampton, 6,756; Fauquier, 6,656; Loudoun, 6,337; Franklin, 5,309.
UPCOMING: A look at the turkey and bear kills.
