Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401090034
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This year, when he traveled there from his home in Tazewell, where he teaches at a community college, his hunts proved to be a disappointment. For one thing, deer were scarce.
"But even more upsetting was the reason for the reduced deer population," he said.
Things got so bad that Davis said he did some investigating and found that a major landowner adjacent to the national forest had killed a large number of deer on damage permits.
"His farm manager and assistant spotlighted deer all last season and into early spring and had almost completely eliminated the entire deer population," said Davis. "I found dead deer up in the woods three-quarters of a mile from this guy's place, and I know they shot them in non-vital areas so they wouldn't have to bury them."
Davis is so upset that he wants to get the law changed that awards landowner deer kill permits for the asking. He has discussed the issue with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and a state legislator.
"I realize that a farmer has the right to protect his livelihood and agree that deer must sometimes be killed when crop damage is excessive, but this incident dictates that more needs to be done to regulate this practice," Davis said. "I can't understand why one individual can be permitted to devastate a resource that is so valuable to Virginia and its residents."
Other hunters are making similar statements. While on a recent hunt in Southampton County, Bob Duncan, chief of the wildlife division of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, said several sportsmen approached him to express concern that the permit system is being abused.
"They were saying that some of the guys down there have almost got into a recreational thing, riding around at night and killing deer on a kill permit," Duncan said. "I am sure there is some abuse of the permit system, but I'm also sure there is some legitimate use of it."
After a complaint from Davis, Duncan said he studied figures from the 1992-93 season that showed about 5,000 of the 200,000 deer reported killed in Virginia were taken on damage permits. That figure is similar to the number reported killed on highways.
Davis agrees that the percentage of permit-killed deer isn't all that high but adds, "If 300 or 400 of them are killed in one little valley, that one area is just being wiped out."
What bothers Duncan is there appears to be a trend of some people killing more and more deer on damage permits.
"People who used to get a permit and kill 20 deer it seems now are going out and killing 150 to 200. That is happening in more cases. It is not isolated in just one region, either. It has been a black eye for us," Duncan said.
In recent years, legislation has put restrictions on damage permit use. It now is tougher to kill a buck on a damage permit, for example. A program called DCAP has attempted to move the killing of nuisance deer from the summertime into the hunting season. But game wardens still must issue permits at the request of a landowner, without regard to the extent of damage or method the deer will be killed.
"Game officials should go out and examine how much damage is being done, then make a decision based on that," Davis said.
There is plenty of room for improvement, but the best way to handle abuses of damage permits is to limit their need, Duncan says. If you have seasons, bag limits and hunter interest to keep the herd in proper balance with its habitat, then damage is going to be reduced.
by CNB