Deer harvest dips

Bollweevil

Eight Pointer
Cotton acres planted are way down compared to the late 90s and early 2000s due to low prices. Also, the farmers have been shooting them in the fields long before the permits ever existed. EHD, predation and liberal deer harvest are killing the deer herd numbers.

Bertie County is down as well. I have never seen Bertie out of the top three in the state in deer harvest.

In my experience I have had some good kills over the last 5-7 yrs but I have seen way less deer than I used to. Maybe that is a plus but I know for fact deer numbers are down where I hunt.

It's the lowest deer harvest in Bertie County since 1991!!!
 

CRC

Old Mossy Horns
http://www.starnewsonline.com/sports/20170504/nc-deer-harvest-suffers-big-decline
“We have roughly one million deer,” said Jon Shaw, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Deer Biologist. “We gained some control of the population by increasing the doe harvest, finally reaching the tipping point. In 2007, when we implemented bonus antlerless harvest report cards with an unlimited antlerless harvest, the antlerless harvest increased 28 percent.”

“These impacts are highly variable across time and landscape,” Shaw said. “Predators alone will not decimate deer populations, but their impacts may be additive with other factors that cause declines. In areas where deer are declining, the major factors are harvest, predators, disease and habitat. The most easily addressed is doe harvest. However, we can do whatever we can to mitigate the other factors. You have to remove more than 60 percent of the coyote population every year to drive total numbers down. A sustainable deer harvest is 30 percent, but it may be lower than that now, as a result of coyote predation. To get a better idea of these other factors, we are undertaking a game camera study and initiating statewide deer ecology research.”
 
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jug

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Cotton may be down now, but so is the peanuts. The peanuts have been gone for 18 years. The farmers turned to cotton when the peanut allotments were bought out back in 2000. You do that for 12 years like they did in my part of Northampton and compound that with the killing of more deer during the summer from the soybean fields. Coyotes were starting to be seen up there in 2010. I cant imagine what they did to the deer herd up there. We saw the deer numbers going down all over Northampton back in 2010 to 2011. The pine plantations that took the place of those hardwood pine mix forests are gone unless they are near water. Those pine plantations don't produce much forage. I can remember seeing over 100+ deer in peanut fields in Northampton county between 1989 and 1998 during September.
 

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
I didn't notice less deer, just less mature bucks. Had 1 year old bucks, rarely a 2 year old and one big 4/5 year old.
 

Redneck Rocker Dude

Old Mossy Horns
I think all the "qdma" hunters that are hammering does as hard as they can go has a lot to do with this as well.


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oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
I think all the "qdma" hunters that are hammering does as hard as they can go has a lot to do with this as well.


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that is exactly what hunters were being trained to do by the state. with no limit on does, they were thought of as vermin. when the herd numbers were reduced supposedly we would all be seeing biguns.

that's the lecture i remember.
 

waymoe1

Ten Pointer
that is exactly what hunters were being trained to do by the state. With no limit on does, they were thought of as vermin. When the herd numbers were reduced supposedly we would all be seeing biguns.

That's the lecture i remember.

yep yall are right. Everyone needs to police their self better. We dont have the numbers we used to. There is one farm i hunt where i dont shoot any does because i know my neighbors are doing it for everyone. And then every one wonders why i kill a nice buck over there. If you dont police yourself better on does and the cry when you dont see deer. Its no ones fault but your own. The resource can be depleted guys
 

jug

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Old school is right. I can remember the old Margarettsville Hunt club back in 1990 [Northampton county] being visited by the game warden and he went on to tell the club that afternoon..... how we needed to kill more does if we want to see more big bucks. I remember it well because some of the younger members tried for several years after that to convince the older guys who ran the club to let us shoot more does. Seemed to make sense at the time but what did I know . I was only 19.
 
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cheapdate

Eight Pointer
Old school is right. I can remember the old Margarettsville Hunt club back in 1990 [Northampton county] being visited by the game warden and he went on to tell the club that afternoon..... how we needed to kill more does if we want to see more big bucks. I remember it well because some of the younger members tried for several years after that to convince the older guys who ran the club to let us shoot more does. Seemed to make sense at the time but what did I know . I was only 19.

You can't shoot more does and every young buck and expect results. You have to combine a heavy doe harvest with a let-the young-bucks-live management policy. Most counties in North Carolina have higher buck harvests than doe harvests. The few exceptions (eg. Person County) have higher doe harvests and are known for record-book bucks.
 

2boyz

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
The doe/fawn ratio, fawn survivability, will be a number that all hunters in NC will understand as we seek to better understand the impact of predation/coyotes. Documented survival rates of <30% will raise concerns.

Speculation: Other than kill by county, NC probably has minimal/no monitoring of the herd across the various districts/population bases. This is zero criticism of regulators/scientists. The issue with NC's deer population has been focused on population control with very little concern about the possibility of wide-spread population destabilization.

States such as AL, MO and others use techniques such as tagged animals and trail camera surveys (population density, doe/fawn ratio) to monitor herd trends. (Critical Point: MO DNR is incredibly well-funded via a % of sales tax revenue legislated to go to DNR.) Alabama monitors doe/fawn ratios with trail cameras. Possibly every state has such a program...I don't know. However, rest assured that the doe/fawn ratio will be a number that we will all grasp as states move forward.

PhD wildlife biologists, in the pre-SAS era, were the best statisticians in the world. They still are. Given the data, biologists will provide sound guidance for herd management as we move forward.

SUMMARY: I contend that the destabilizing impact of predation has had significantly more impact in NC than has been communicated to hunters. If it does not yet exist on a widespread basis, trail cam monitoring of the deer herd will play a major role in NC. Hopefully, researchers will include motivated hunters as a critical segment of the solution via being a source of data collection as trials are developed.

Coyotes will continue to play a major role until a wide-spread, predictable control method evolves. Ideally, this will involve predictable and repeatable techniques to attract a large group of sport hunters targeting coyotes during deer fawning season. Trapping is incredibly effective for intensive control in a specific geographic area. Areas the size of eastern NC add another perspective.
 
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