Post by Woody Williams on Feb 29, 2008 16:58:58 GMT -5
Here's the complete story from Mark Taylor's column in the Roanoke Times:
Virginia deer hunters racked up a couple of big numbers during last fall's hunting season. Preliminary figures compiled by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and released this week peg the total kill at 241,576 whitetails, the highest number ever recorded.
But the number state biologists are focusing on is 109,493 -- the number of female deer tagged by hunters. "For the first time in our history the doe kill was bigger than the antlered buck kill," said Nelson Lafon, one of two deer project managers with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. That's important, Lafon said, because it shows that hunters are taking more seriously their role helping the game department control deer numbers by taking reproducing does out of the herd.
The state also has released initial figures for the fall turkey and bear seasons.
Turkey hunters finally turned things around after several consecutive years of plummeting kills. The tally was 4,759 birds, a jump of 15 percent statewide.
The bear kill was 1,517, a 7.5 percent drop from last year's record of 1,633 but still the second best year on record.
Lafon said the total deer tally, which was a 7 percent climb over last year's total of 223,775 and just slightly above the previous record of 237,035 set in 2003, wasn't a great number.
Typically, rising kill numbers indicate a growing population.
But what was encouraging for biologists was that the doe killed climbed above 45 percent.
Stabilizing or reducing a deer population requires the female kill to be in the 45- to 50-percent range, Lafon said.
The doe kill was up 12 percent from 2006, and 21 percent over the 10-year average.
The jump came in a year that featured no regulation shifts to try to encourage higher doe kills.
"Hunters are buying into knowing that does need to be harvested to control, or in some cases even decrease, the deer population," said Bob Ellis, assistant director of the DGIF's Wildlife Division.
Hunters using conventional firearms continue to be responsible for most of the deer tagged, but muzzleloader and archery hunters still account for about one-third of the kill.
This past season, muzzleloader hunters killed 55,434 deer, which is 23 percent of the total.
Bow hunters using conventional archery equipment killed 17,335 deer. That was 7 percent of the total and just more than double the crossbow kill of 8,549.
The crossbow kill was up 21 percent, a trend that reflects growing interest in the weapons, which have been legal for archery season for three years.
Nearly 138,000 deer (57 percent) were checked by phone rather than at check stations and another 3 percent were checked over the Internet.
As in 2006, Bedford county had the by far highest deer kill in the state. The county's total was 8,270.
The hefty kill also seemed to alleviate concerns that a bad outbreak of hemorrhagic disease would severely impact deer herds in some areas. Kill numbers were strong even in counties that had high numbers of HD reports.
The turkey kill, which has plummeted in recent years in large part because of declining hunter interest, finally rebounded.
A spotty mast crop, which can make turkeys easier to locate, may have contributed to the increase.
The biggest jump in the turkey kill was in counties west of the Blue Ridge Range, where the total was up 24 percent to 2,077. Scott County was the top county with 171 birds.
The bear kill reflects a healthy population in the animal's Virginia range, Ellis said.
Archery hunters killed 393 bears, 25 percent of the total, while 92 bears were killed during the four-day muzzleloader season.
Firearms hunters killed 1,032 bears, a drop of about 10 percent from the 2006 total of 1,118. Hunters using hounds accounted for 52 percent of the firearms kill.
Virginia deer hunters racked up a couple of big numbers during last fall's hunting season. Preliminary figures compiled by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and released this week peg the total kill at 241,576 whitetails, the highest number ever recorded.
But the number state biologists are focusing on is 109,493 -- the number of female deer tagged by hunters. "For the first time in our history the doe kill was bigger than the antlered buck kill," said Nelson Lafon, one of two deer project managers with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. That's important, Lafon said, because it shows that hunters are taking more seriously their role helping the game department control deer numbers by taking reproducing does out of the herd.
The state also has released initial figures for the fall turkey and bear seasons.
Turkey hunters finally turned things around after several consecutive years of plummeting kills. The tally was 4,759 birds, a jump of 15 percent statewide.
The bear kill was 1,517, a 7.5 percent drop from last year's record of 1,633 but still the second best year on record.
Lafon said the total deer tally, which was a 7 percent climb over last year's total of 223,775 and just slightly above the previous record of 237,035 set in 2003, wasn't a great number.
Typically, rising kill numbers indicate a growing population.
But what was encouraging for biologists was that the doe killed climbed above 45 percent.
Stabilizing or reducing a deer population requires the female kill to be in the 45- to 50-percent range, Lafon said.
The doe kill was up 12 percent from 2006, and 21 percent over the 10-year average.
The jump came in a year that featured no regulation shifts to try to encourage higher doe kills.
"Hunters are buying into knowing that does need to be harvested to control, or in some cases even decrease, the deer population," said Bob Ellis, assistant director of the DGIF's Wildlife Division.
Hunters using conventional firearms continue to be responsible for most of the deer tagged, but muzzleloader and archery hunters still account for about one-third of the kill.
This past season, muzzleloader hunters killed 55,434 deer, which is 23 percent of the total.
Bow hunters using conventional archery equipment killed 17,335 deer. That was 7 percent of the total and just more than double the crossbow kill of 8,549.
The crossbow kill was up 21 percent, a trend that reflects growing interest in the weapons, which have been legal for archery season for three years.
Nearly 138,000 deer (57 percent) were checked by phone rather than at check stations and another 3 percent were checked over the Internet.
As in 2006, Bedford county had the by far highest deer kill in the state. The county's total was 8,270.
The hefty kill also seemed to alleviate concerns that a bad outbreak of hemorrhagic disease would severely impact deer herds in some areas. Kill numbers were strong even in counties that had high numbers of HD reports.
The turkey kill, which has plummeted in recent years in large part because of declining hunter interest, finally rebounded.
A spotty mast crop, which can make turkeys easier to locate, may have contributed to the increase.
The biggest jump in the turkey kill was in counties west of the Blue Ridge Range, where the total was up 24 percent to 2,077. Scott County was the top county with 171 birds.
The bear kill reflects a healthy population in the animal's Virginia range, Ellis said.
Archery hunters killed 393 bears, 25 percent of the total, while 92 bears were killed during the four-day muzzleloader season.
Firearms hunters killed 1,032 bears, a drop of about 10 percent from the 2006 total of 1,118. Hunters using hounds accounted for 52 percent of the firearms kill.