Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202170245
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DEER KILL: TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE?
Bedford County, where a hunter might have had difficulty finding a deer track 25 years ago, leads the state's deer kill during the 1991-92 season. It also was the No. 1 turkey-kill county.Hunters reported killing a record 6,263 deer in the county. Never had any Virginia county reached the 5,000 mark.
"I think we needed a pretty hard hit," said Bob Duncan, chief of the department's game division.
To get that, the daily bag limit had been doubled and the number of does days were boosted from six to 12. Hunters could kill two deer of either sex every day of the two-week season.
The same regulations are scheduled to be in force next season.
"We want to give it one more whirl next year, then we can sit down and see if we knocked them back, them maybe we can ease off the throttle a little bit," said Duncan.
Bedford is one of several counties where officials believe the deer herd is beginning to exceeded the carrying capacity of the range.
"Part of the payoff of fewer deer should be better quality herds," said Duncan.
While some hunters are wondering aloud if too many deer were killed during the recent season, game officials are more concerned if too few were taken.
The latest figures show a statewide kill of 179,344, which was a record, but well under the 200,000 Duncan had hoped to reach.
A preliminary report showed that the kill was heavy in the west and light in the east, but more recent figures revealed that wasn't the case, Duncan said. The western kill was 69,150, an 11.8 percent increase, while the eastern tally was 110,194, up 13 percent.
"There still is the question, did we get enough," Duncan said. "I will say this: In some of those counties where we said, `Hey, we have a problem, we are going to knock them down,' like Bedford, we knocked them down. We won't see as many deer there next season. I will tell you that."
Duncan said he would have preferred to see similar results in a number of eastern counties, where problems with an over abundance of deer occur. But weather conditions often were unfavorable in areas where dogs are used in deer hunting.
"There were few good days when the weather conditions, the moisture and the coolness were conducive to good dog hunting. Instead of a 12,000 increase in the east, we just as easily could have had 15,000."
Duncan said his office is hearing from some western hunters, particularly in the Shenandoah Valley, who believe deer are being over-harvested.
"In the west, I think there are going to be some people who are going to be concerned. Not every county, not every group of hunters, has bought into the need for antlerless deer harvesting," he said.
"If I were to choose between under-harvesting and over-harvesting, I would opt for the over-harvesting every time. When a herd gets over-populated, when the deer start over-browsing the range, they can render the range less able to support deer in the future. You are better off knocking the herd back some."
The doe kill averaged 39.6 percent statewide, about where officials wanted it. No county went above 50 percent, which would have been too high, Duncan said. It was 48 percent in Bedford County.
"Southampton County probably has been killing 45 percent does for a long time, and their herd just keeps hanging in there," Duncan said.
Last fall's heavy mast crop, coupled with a mild winter and a reduction in the herd in some areas, should result in excellent antler development next season, Duncan said.
Bucks, however, need time to mature before they can grow the kind of antlers that send a hunter trotting to a taxidermy shop, he said.
"Sixty-five to 70 percent of all the bucks taken are yearlings. They are not full grown. They are picked before they are ripe.
"People have to learn that when they pull the trigger they are making the management decision for the area they are hunting. If they shoot those yearling bucks, obviously they are not going to be around to reach full maturity."
While hunters were bringing a record number of deer out of the woods, turkeys proved to be a more difficult target. The fall kill plunged to 10,534, which was 6,327 fewer than the previous season.
Officials had predicted a drop.
"I certainly didn't think it would be off 38 percent," Duncan said. "Turkeys have the ability to bounce back more than any species that we manage. I am not unduly concerned about the drop in the harvest."
Game biologists believe that too many turkeys were killed the previous season, when the scarcity of mast concentrated the birds. This year, the heavy mast crop scattered turkeys, making them more difficult to locate. In addition, 34 counties had more restrictive regulations.
The bear kill, which now stands at 656, wasn't just a record, but more than double the previous season. That put the kill back on its record-setting tract, following a sharp drop in 1990-91.
"We'd had six years of back-to-back records until the 1990-91 season," Duncan said.
The decline that year came when mast was so scarce that bears went into hibernation early, thus avoiding late-season hunters, he said.
During the past season, the percentage of females in the kill was 41.4, within the range of an expanding bear population, Duncan said.
Bowhunters killed 53 bears, or just over 8 percent of the total. That was a sharp decline from the 36 percent recorded the previous season, when bears were active during the early fall, but had disappeared by the hound hunting season.
\ TOP TEN COUNTIES
TOP 10 DEER
1. Bedford 6,263 2. Loudon 5,771 3. Southampton 4,820 4. Bath 4,801 5. Pittsylvania 4,715 6. Botetourt 4,670 7. Shenandoah 4,195 8. Highland 4,190 9. Rockingham 4,048 10. Augusta 3,825
TOP 10 TURKEY
1. Bedford 416 2. Giles 383 3. Halifax 360 4. Pittsylvania 293 5. Botetourt 274 6. Carroll 270 7. Grayson 261 8. Franklin 256 9. Highland 243 10. King & Queen 238
TOP 10 BEAR
1. Augusta 73 2. Rockingham 64 3. Alleghany 60 4. Albemarle 49 5. Botetourt 46 6. Nelson 41 7. Madison 37 8. Bath 34 9. Page 30 10. Rockbridge 25
Chart has maps showing the locations of the named counties.