Archers took 4,656 shotgunners narrowly exceeded their harvest with 4,920, and primitive firearms hunters shot 2,535. In 2016, an amazing 12,249 deer were taken, the third highest number recorded. MassWildlife biologists, especially deer project leader David Stainbrook, strive to maximize beneficial harvests. With great fragmentation, poor soils, a lethal grid of roads and highways, and high human populations augmented by huge influxes of tourist traffic, its herd is small - a fact reflected by the small number of doe permits allotted to hunters there. In those areas of great deer density, Lyme disease is consequently rampant and plant damage is extensive. As we look east, the dynamics change, especially in communities that are resistant to hunting and resource management.įrom Interstate 495 to the Cape Cod Canal, you’ll find deer much more concentrated, reaching peak densities on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, where hunter access is limited and populations exceed 50 per square mile. Generally, the western region into Worcester County has densities from 12 to 18 deer per square mile, a reasonable number that in most cases works to keep Lyme disease, collisions and forest damage to a minimum. Population densities surprisingly vary significantly across Massachusetts. In some parts of the state, though, we can still do better. Massachusetts’ success largely has been proportionate to the degree to which scientists, not the public or politicians, make the correct decisions on deer management. Bravo, scientific management and MassWildlife biologists. One of the most stunning examples of the toll bad weather can have on deer was the terrible winter of 2012-13, which reduced the Canadian province of Manitoba’s big trophy-laden herd by 70 percent.Ĭonsidering Massachusetts is the third most densely populated state in America, it’s remarkable that we have a herd numbering nearly 100,000 whitetails, a dependable annual harvest now expected to top 10,000 animals, and perennial entries into the Boone and Crockett record book. Recent mild winters, however, increased deer survival substantially there and led to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife to increase doe permits, which resulted in roughly 29,000 deer being taken in 2017 - an increase of about 5,000 over 2016.
Largely because of a string of bad winters several years back, Maine’s herd had suffered, and hunters loudly complained of very poor success. Unofficially, that kill was up this year along with increased harvests in all of the New England states. Meanwhile, little Rhode Island, with a deer population of about 18,000, normally harvests more than 1,000 deer all season despite the fact that it has a long bow season, which just closed.
This past season, Missouri, for example, took 94,977 deer on its opening weekend of firearms season, while kids ages 6 to 15 harvested 17,200 white-tailed deer during their two-day, early youth hunt. If you carefully follow deer hunting harvests across North America, you can readily see much variability.
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