Thursday, September 24, 2009
Hunters build up deer herd, then a neighbor shows up with kill permit
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
A few years ago, Kevin Keeney of Ferrum bought a small piece of property in western Franklin County with the idea of making it his hunting retreat.
“My neighbors and I have been working on a modest deer herd management program with good results; in fact, this year we have two nice bucks in the area and some bear.”
The icing on the cake was a recent trail cam picture of a wall-hanger 10-point buck along with a couple smaller bucks that would make most hunters proud.
“We are all getting pretty excited about the upcoming season,” he said.
That is, until Keeney received a call from a neighbor.
“He told me that one of the landowners near us had received a kill permit for deer and bear, although he only had five acres of land. We have put a lot of time and money into development of good habitat and now this.”
Keeney wants to know what is going on. So do a lot of other hunters.
“These out-of-season deer kill permits are very controversial,” said Matt Knox, deer project leader for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
If a landowner is sustaining damage to his property or crop, regardless of the amount, DGIF officials are required by state law to issue a kill permit that allows the landowners and his agents to take deer or bear out of season and most anyway they can.
Last year, approximately 14,500 deer were killed on the 3,200-plus permits issued by DGIF.
Knox is well aware that this rubs many hunters the wrong way. He fields a bunch of questions this time of the year from upset sportsmen like Keeney. But from a professional standpoint, he believes kill permits play a necessary role in managing Virginia’s deer herd.
“When deer are damaging property in Virginia, as they do throughout the state, there are very few practical options available to help limit the damage on a local basis,” he said. “Kill permits are among the set of lethal alternatives available to landowners.”
Conflict occurs when objectives differ, like when you have landowners or a hunt club on one side of the fence using various wildlife management practices to enhance the deer herd while on the other side of the fence is a landowner who wants nothing more than to mow down as many deer as possible because they are causing him crop damage.
Hard feelings also occur when a landowner turns down the requests of sportsmen to hunt deer on his property, preferring to control the herd by kill permits instead.
DGIF officials do have some say in the kill permit system. They can establish the dates and times that the kill permits are valid and the number and sex of the animals to be taken. They also can determine if a landowner with fewer than five acres should get a kill permit.
“The good news is, unless there is evidence that the damage is being done by deer with antlers, such as rubbing of trees, kill permits are issued for antlerless deer only,” said Knox. Only three percent of the permits issued last year were for antlered bucks.
Keeney isn’t entirely happy with such explanations.
“I could see it if this area was heavy agriculture, but it is not. It is mostly steep terrain close to Philpott Reservoir.”
Keeney has a plan, and it appears to be a good one.
“We are going to talk with the neighbors in the area and see if we can work together to solve these issues.”
That could be a tough road. Efforts to enhance the deer and bear population by Kenney and his friends already have created negative feedback neighbors.
Another option would be to have the state statute amended to make it more difficult to use kill permits unless true damage is established. That would take a major groundswell of effort by hunters, which doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.
“I know, 14,500 deer killed on permits seems like a lot, but recall hunters killed nearly 260,000 deer last year,” Knox said.
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