Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994                   TAG: 9402150025
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GETTING HUNTERS ON OTHER SIDE OF POSTED SIGNS

You are a sportsman, looking for a place to hunt. You read about all the crop damage, yet you don't know any farmers willing to let you hunt.

Wildlife and agricultural officials need to bring these two groups together. That was one of the major recommendations in a deer damage report submitted to the 1994 General Assembly. The report set the annual crop and property damage caused by deer at $16 million annually.

``If people are given access to the animals, we can control the deer herd,'' said Matt Knox, deer program supervisor for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. ``Without access it can't be controlled and the herd is going to expand.''

But how do you get hunters and landowners together?

The deer damage report recommends a close look at a new venture in West Virginia, called the Cooperative Landowner/Sportsman Access Program. It is designed to help landowners who have higher than desired deer densities to contact a pool of ethical outdoorsmen who desire a place to hunt.

``It sounds like a great idea,'' said Knox. ``There are a lot of hunters out there who need a place to hunt, but the average landowner is going to be real shy of unknown people on his land.''

One of the problems with the program in West Virginia is that hunters have been much quicker to sign up than landowners, said Knox.

To work in Virginia, hunters likely would have to gain the trust of landowners through hunter-safety training and a pledge of sportsmanship, Knox said.

``Restricted access is becoming bigger and bigger every day,'' he said. ``There are more and more posted signs, and probably there will be even more in the future.''

Rather than starting a hunter-landowner access program from scratch, Knox said ,Virginia officials will closely monitor the West Virginia program.

The deer study also pointed out that crop damage can be severe in areas near deer ``refuges'' where hunting is prohibited, whether private land or a national park.

``The Shenandoah National Park is the biggest example,'' said Knox. Where you have large areas that prohibit hunting, deer learn to bed down in them and move at night, he said. The adjoining land can suffer deer damage, even if hunting is permitted on it.

``The current no hunting management option employed by some state and federal agencies has contributed to the development and maintenance of artificially high deer densities,'' the deer study reported. The damage can impact other wild animals, even song birds.

The same can be said of private property where hunting is discouraged, Knox said.

The damage study recommended that an education program be developed to teach landowners, cities, counties and even homeowners about their deer management options.

The study also directed the game department to fine tune its deer management plan by establishing deer population goals across the state that provide both recreational deer hunting and damage control.