Healthy deer harvest Kentucky
January 23rd, 2006 by Administrator
More does than bucks – State reports a healthy deer harvest With an interesting mix of warm days followed by rain and/or snow making it a typical Kentucky winter, how about some seasonal news:
Deer season totals
With the close of archery hunting over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, Kentucky’s 2005-06 white-tailed deer season is history.
The season harvest was lower than biologists had predicted, but for the first time ever, more does than bucks were taken for two successive years.
“We hope that trend continues,” said Tina Brunjes, deer biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “Our hunters are getting the message, and they have become very discerning about the antlerless deer they harvest.”
Brunjes said the button buck harvest has declined, which shows patience on the part of hunters. “They’re taking the time to make sure they’re killing the larger adult does, and protecting the younger bucks.”
This past season, hunters took 112,442 deer — 48 percent bucks and 52 percent does. The sex ratio of the kill is nearly identical to the 2004-05 season, when 48.4 percent of the deer taken were antlered and 51.6 percent were antlerless.
The harvest of female deer, especially older adult does, is important in controlling deer numbers, balancing sex ratio and maintaining quality deer (high body weights and heavy antlers).
The downside of the season’s harvest data is that 12,310 fewer deer were killed than last season, with declines in harvest by all weapon types (modern rifle, muzzleloader, archery) except crossbows, which showed a modest increase in harvest from 561 in 2004-05 to 586 this past season.
But Brunjes said she believes warm weather, a full-moon period during modern firearms season and a heavy mast crop were factors in the lower deer harvest. “Because we have such a short firearms season, (the harvest) is susceptible to natural variations.”
Heavy mast (nut) crops, for example, tend to concentrate deer. “They don’t disperse, or move around as much,” Brunjes said. “The have the option to stay in much safer places.”
Kentucky’s deer harvest had grown steadily for four years from the 2001-02 season (harvest of 103,338) to the 2004-05 season (record harvest of 124,752), but it declined by about 10 percent this past season.
“If you look at the harvest since 2000, the numbers have been pretty level,” Brunjes said. She said she doesn’t expect any major changes for the 2006-07 deer season. “I’m expecting herd size to remain about the same, too.”
Once again, Owen County reported the highest harvest in the state, 3,403 deer, and five counties — Christian, Crittenden, Henry, Pendleton, and Shelby — reported more than 2,000 deer killed.