Big Game Briefs: April - June 2003
The Big Game Briefs are a compilation of recent events, program status and anecdotes pertaining to deer and bear management issues across the state. Submissions of local interest from each regional Deer Biologist, along with statewide perspectives from Central Office Big Game staff are consolidated to present a review of current deer and bear management program issues across the state.
REGION 1
DEER HERD CONDITION
Deer on Long Island came through the winter in pretty good shape. No significant winter related mortality was found by DEC staff when conducting fieldwork and our office received no information from residents or organizations regarding winter related mortality. The abundance of acorns available last fall/winter and lack of prolonged periods of accumulated snow means that deer should generally be in good shape through the summer. However, deer in some of larger tracts of habitat where hunting is not permitted are not likely to be in as good condition because of higher deer densities and limited food supply.
The first report of a fawn on the island this spring was made in early May by an Islip resident. DEC staff conducting field work after that point began seeing fawns on a regular basis. During the last week of June, fawns of significantly varying size and age were observed by staff indicating that the breeding season was prolonged, which is expected in areas of high deer densities. Most does that were observed with fawns so far appeared to have twins.
DEER DAMAGE
Eighty-nine Nuisance Deer Permits (NDPs) have been issued in 2003 to date. At this point last year, 96 NDPs were issued. The number of requests for permit applications and renewals have increased over the last month because the growing season is now under way and damage to crops has become more obvious to landowners. Those requesting NDPs are encouraged to allow hunting on their property during the legal deer hunting seasons and are also encouraged to enroll in the Deer Management Assistance Program.
VILLAGE OF LLOYD HARBOR
The Village of Lloyd Harbor held a meeting for their residents to allow for the discussion of deer management options. Deer have been observed within the village located on Long Island's north shore and just west of the Nassau County border. Deer-car collisions have been reported within the village, which has not had a deer population for some time until recently. DEC staff gave a presentation outlining all of the management options and provided information about the feasibility of the various options based on existing local and state laws. Representatives from various agencies were in attendance to provide additional information. A roundtable discussion was held after the DEC presentation. Although the question about which option(s) to choose for management is yet to be answered, the meeting was productive in terms of informing residents and village representatives of the alternatives available.
REGION 4
DEER DAMAGE
There was an increase in the number of Nuisance Deer Permits in orchards during the early months of 2003. A total of 17 permits were issued in the January-June period, compared to 23 issued during the same time frame last year. The increase could be attributed to the severe winter conditions experienced this past year. Overall the region has issued 64 damage permits this year compared to 50 during the same time period in 2002.
MOOSE IN REGION 4
Several moose now reside in Rensselaer County which is located east of Albany. This winter most of the sightings were reported in the central portion of the Rensselaer hills. This spring wildlife staff found evidence of at least one moose who spent the winter on the Capitol District Wildlife Management Area and in early July, a female wandered southwest into Columbia county and was seen in the town of Stuyvesant near the Hudson river.
REGION 5
DEER HERD CONDITION
The winter of 2002-2003 was the most severe since 1993-94, with deep snow and cold temperatures from mid December through early April over most of Region 5. Dead deer surveys were conducted in seven deer wintering areas this spring. A total area of just under one-half square mile was thoroughly covered, and ten deer carcasses were found, for an average of 22 dead deer per square mile of wintering area. Although this sampling effort was not nearly enough to accurately assess losses, the severity of the winter compared to past years indicates that there may be as much as a 20% decline in the buck take this coming fall due to winter losses. Changes in the proposed muzzleloading hunting regulations have been changed to account for these losses by limiting the muzzleloader take to bucks only in WMUs 5F, 5H, 5G, and 5J. The Southern Zone units also had some winter loss, and Deer Management Permit targets were adjusted accordingly. The buck take this fall will be a good measure of the extent of the winter losses in all units.
DEER DAMAGE
Deer damage complaints are lower in general this spring in the region, but orchards seem to be having more problems than normal. Usually the late winter period is the main season for damage in orchards, but this year several orchards are experiencing damage throughout the spring and early summer. Heavy harvests of antlerless deer in the southern zone units in the region, coupled with the severe winter, may reduce the overall number of agricultural complaints this summer.
CITIZEN TASK FORCES
Cooperative Extension representatives in Saratoga and Washington Counties have been contacted to begin the CTF process in WMUs 5R, 5N, 5K, and 5P. Unit 5K is a fairly new unit that was formed several years ago and has not gone through a CTF process yet. The other units are due for updates. All units will be completed before next spring when Deer Management Permit targets are set.
REGION 6
DEER HERD CONDITION
Spring/early summer deer numbers in Region 6 appear overall to be substantial, but possibly slightly down from a year ago. Above average winter severity resulted in higher than normal winter loss in portions of the Region, particularly on the Tug Hill and southwestern Adirondacks. In other areas winter loss was noted, but apparently not severe enough to substantially impact overall numbers. Following a cool, wet start to spring, conditions changed rapidly in June, resulting in many reports of a good fawn drop over much of the Region.
DEER DAMAGE
Deer damage complaints in Region 6 continue to be fewer than in recent years. Portions of the Region with the highest deer densities have been managed for a lower overall number, and the trend in complaints appears to confirm some progress. Deer numbers, however, remain above objective in several Units, with some "hotspots" where complaint volume remains high.
REGION 7
DEER HERD CONDITION
By most accounts deer in Region 7 came through the tough winter of 2002-2003 remarkably well and the wet spring should have provided them a good jump on recovering from the drain of winter. That fact that telephone calls about "orphaned" fawns came into the office at about a normal clip, suggests winter had little impact on productivity in much of the region.
DEER DAMAGE
Possibly another result of the lush spring, deer damage complaints have been relatively few although calls have picked up recently. A total of 36 Nuisance Deer Permits have been issued to date. Last year a final total of 86 damage permits were issued for the entire season.
CITIZEN TASK FORCE
A CTF was completed for Wildlife Management Unit 7J this past winter. The Task Force recommended the unit's deer population be reduced 25%. Major concerns were agricultural damage and highway safety. The Buck Take Objective for the unit will be lowered slightly from 2.4 to 2.2 bucks harvested per square mile as a result of the task force's recommendation.
KING FERRY QDM PROJECT
For a third year, we attempted to capture and tag fawns on the King Ferry Quality Deer Management project area. Student volunteers were once again a valuable and entertaining part of the effort. The fawn encounter rate was very similar to 2001, with a fawn discovered about every 45 minutes, many of which ran and escaped. We also experimented with driving in vehicles and observing does to locate fawns, which is a much less labor intensive approach. When we completed our field work, we had tagged 3 fawns with each method and matched our high total of 6 tagged fawns that we accomplished in 2000.
REGION 8
DEER HERD CONDITION
All 15 Region 8 WMUs are still above the desired levels set by Citizen Task Forces, some markedly so, in spite of a record doe harvest last season. Substantial numbers of antlerless deer still need to be taken to reduce populations significantly in most all units. Plentiful rainfall throughout the region this spring produced an abundance of early, succulent vegetation for Region 8's deer herd deer to feed upon. This came none too soon for some deer who were looking quite haggard from a long and tough winter. Some single fawns have been sighted, but if the winter has affected deer numbers significantly anywhere in the region, it has not been evident. Staff continue to field new damage complaints regularly and often. We will know more of the effects of last winter on the deer herd after this coming hunting season is "in the books."
DEER DAMAGE
The hiring of seasonal "customer service" Fish and Wildlife Technician Steve Miller in our Avon office has helped greatly with processing of Nuisance Deer Permits. Steve is assisting in our continual efforts towards making our NDP issuance more efficient by maintaining the permit database, issuing permits, and handling requests for more tags. This saves time for field staff who don't have to do as much of the administrative side of issuing permits.
Our second wave of nuisance auto-renewal NDPs (for field crops) went out in May, following the first wave that went out in January for orchard and nursery damage. Landowner and staff reaction to these streamlined issuance procedures and time periods has been good, primarily because there are less administrative issues to deal with. We continue to see an ever greater percentage of our nuisance situations being handled with auto-renewal, which saves everyone time and effort.
DMAP
Applications have been coming in at record levels. This is partly by design, as the region has made a substantial effort to foster the handling of localized deer problems with in-season harvest whenever possible. While we will never handle every problem with DMAP only, it has been an increasingly accepted way to do business, and well-received by landowners, many of whom would just as soon take deer during the season for a variety of reasons.
CWD SURVEILLANCE
Collection of the region's 2003 CWD surveillance sample of 164 deer has begun, with eleven deer submitted for testing to date. Since the majority of the region's CWD sample comes from deer taken on existing Nuisance Deer Permit locations, and mid to late summer is the peak take under that program, sample numbers are still low. By the end of the summer, we hope to be well on our way to a full sample for the region, as was the case last year.
DEER MANAGEMENT PERMITS
Due to a thriving deer herd, abundant antlerless permits will be available again this year, down only slightly from last year's record availability of over 214,000 permits. Virtually everyone who wants one permit in any of our units will receive one this year, with two permits all but assured in 12 of our 15 units.
BLACK BEAR
As part of our ongoing Black Bear Telemetry Study, monitoring continues on four yearling females in northwest Steuben County, as well as one adult female with her three yearlings in southern Steuben. On June 1st, with help from the NY Houndsmen and students from Finger Lakes Community College, an adult female was treed in southeastern Livingston County, and fitted with a satellite transmitter. The collar records the bear's location every five hours, and provides important data about bears living at the northern edge of their range in western NY. The hope is in the spring to visit her in a den with cubs to further our education of Region 8 bears. An extra bonus with this bear is that she was captured originally as a yearling in 2000, making her a known-age individual with known birth area, giving us information on distance of dispersal as well.
REGION 9
DEER DAMAGE
As the snow melted in late March and early April, we received numerous deer damage complaints as deer became more mobile and started looking for new food sources. For a short period of time, deer damage to christmas trees, blueberries, strawberries and nursery stock was common and in some cases, pretty extreme. Since then, complaints have been at normal levels. Due to our cold/wet spring, many crops have only been planted during the last couple of weeks. Deer damage is expected to pick up as deer focus on these newly planted crops.
CITIZEN TASK FORCE RESULTS
Three Citizen Task Force meetings were completed in April. In Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) 9F, located in northeastern Erie County and southeastern Niagara County, the CTF recommended reducing the deer population by 22 percent, with a Buck Take Objective (BTO) of harvesting 2.5 bucks per square mile. In WMU 9P (central and northeastern Allegany County), the CTF recommended a 12 percent decrease in the population, resulting in a new BTO of 6.0 bucks per square mile. The CTF for WMU 9X (located in southern Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties), recommended a reduction in the deer population of four percent. The new BTO for WMU 9X will be 5.8 bucks per square mile.
DEER HERD CONDITION
Regional staff was able to document some winter mortality in portions of western New York that received 200 inches of snow or more last winter. Approximately 90 percent of all starved deer that were observed were last year's fawns. It appears that most of our deer came through the winter in good condition. Many people have had positive comments about the physical condition of our local deer this spring. Although it is early in the post fawning period, there have been many observations across the region of adult does with single fawns. Whether these observations relate to the severe winter or the wet/cold spring is unknown. It will be interesting to look at harvest rates of fawns this fall, comparing WMUs that had severe winter weather conditions with other locations where milder winter conditions occurred.
REGIONAL ISSUES
The Town of Amherst in Erie County has completed a Deer/Vehicle Accident Management Plan based on the number of deer/car collisions occurring in the town. A combination of lethal and nonlethal techniques will be applied in the town to reduce the number of accidents. Discussions were held to initiate a program with private landowners to use Nuisance Deer Permits this fall and winter in core areas of the town to help reduce the number of deer/car accidents.
Regional staff have initiated the collection of deer samples for chronic wasting disease sampling for 2003. Approximately 20 samples have been obtained from deer killed on deer damage permits and deer/car collisions.
As a result of stakeholder input during our WMU 9F CTF meetings, a public information meeting was held to discuss deer management concerns in the unit. There has been a growing concern among some deer hunters regarding the use of deer damage permits in the unit. Several hunters expressed their feelings regarding a decreasing deer population in the Towns of Clarence and Newstead in Erie County. Data presented during the meeting demonstrated that hunter harvest and deer/car collisions are the main mortality factors associated with the management unit. Approximately 50 people attended the meeting.
CENTRAL OFFICE REPORTS
DEER
DECALS
Work has continued through the spring and summer to refine and improve the DECALS sales system, Harvest Reporting systems and carcass tags. Many of last year's on-line connection issues and "Open DMP applications" resulted from the display of the long list of WMUs available for the DMP Instant Lottery and the time and band width required to send this down over the telephone lines to the agents POS hardware. This list has been suppressed and it will be replaced with paper posters (these will also be more useful to the customers). This list will reappear during the First Come-First Serve DMP sales.
Carcass tags were modified to make them easier to read. This was done by making the document numbers larger and by separating them into three groups of 4 numbers, separated by hyphens, the tag names were also revised slightly. The license material backs were changed to make it easier to indicate the date of take. The regulations will also be modified so that the date of take could be either marked or cut out, to allow consistency across all species.
Training will be ongoing in July and August to provide refresher training and updated information to License Issuing Agents. Hunting license sales and DMP issuance will begin on August 18th. The Initial Application period for DMPs will conclude on October 1.
2003-04 HUNTING AND TRAPPING GUIDE
The drafts of the Hunting and Trapping Guides for 2003-2004 were completed in early May and proof copies arrived shortly thereafter. Changes to the guide for this year include more information about DECALS, game reporting and license use with the 3/2 deer license structure that was implemented last year. A new section of "Commonly Asked Questions" was added to help hunters better understand the many changes that occurred last year to license issuance, structure and use in the field. The DMP Odds page was expanded to include several additional categories to better help hunters select the units in which they wish to apply for DMPs. All things considered, hunters should find this year's guide to be more user friendly and informative.
DMP NUMBERS FOR 2003
Final target numbers of Deer Management Permits (DMPs) were calculated a little later than normal because of the need in some areas to determine the extent and severity of winter mortality on the deer herd. Winter conditions in many areas were harsher and lasted considerably longer than recent winters. This was especially true for a number of areas in the Northern Zone and in parts of the Catskill Region. Loses occurred, but levels of mortality did not appear extreme. Projected buck takes were reduced in a number of units, and lower female removal ratios were used in areas where winter kill occurred. Hunter subscription data exists for each category of selection for each WMU, and serves to further streamline permit number and probability calculations.
Final desired DMP numbers for the upcoming season will be about 650,000 statewide. This is a small reduction from the 2002 total and reflects a number of factors, including winter mortality and the record harvest that occurred in many WMUs last year. The positive impacts of high permit numbers in many units are finally being realized.
MUZZLELOADER SEASONS
Pending the final adoption of regulations, Northern Zone muzzleloader season opportunities will be reduced as a result of winter mortality during the past winter. Seasons in WMU 5F, 5H, 5G, and 5J will become buck only hunting areas, and WMU 5A will drop back to one week of either sex muzzleloader hunting. The Southern Zone muzzleloader season remains unchanged.
STATEWIDE DEER TEAM MEETING
The June meeting of the Deer Biologist Team was cancelled and the topics were added to the agenda for the September meeting. It is tentatively scheduled for September 23 thru 25 and will be hosted by Region 9.
LEGISLATION
A number of bills were considered by the Legislature during the recently concluded session. Of particular note was a bill passed by both the Senate and the Assembly, and requires the wearing of blaze orange during the regular big game season. Wording of the bill stipulates " ...a hat or cap of solid or patterned flourescent orange colored material and/or an outer above the waist of a minimum total of 500 square inches of such material". If signed into law, this would take effect on January 1, 2004.
Other legislation authorizing Junior Big Game Hunting (firearms), Junior Archery hunting for 12 and 13 year old youths, the use of rifles in additional areas in the southern zone remained in various committees at the conclusion of the sessions.
DEER SEASON RESTRUCTURING
As a result of continued interest among deer hunters to consider a number of changes to the structure and timing of our existing deer seasons, we have agreed to evaluate these issues fully and fairly during the next few months. All things considered, it is not a simple undertaking and clearly any proposed change(s) will impact a number of stakeholders and constituents. Rather than consider these possible changes piecemeal, it has been decided to incorporate all viable proposals into a single, comprehensive season revision package. We will be soliciting ideas for changes in the 2003-04 Hunting and Trapping Guide and on our website. It is anticipated that any proposed changes for the 2004 seasons will be finalized and announced prior to January 1, 2004. This will hopefully allow sufficient time for hunters to plan their hunting trips and vacations accordingly.
CWD RELATED ISSUES
Public input following the statewide CWD public meetings this past winter was received throughout the comment period which extended into June. All of the public comments were reviewed and compiled in a summary which will be published with the final regulations. It is expected that the proposed final regulations will be submitted for adoption in mid July.
CWD surveillance efforts for 2003 are underway, and regional staff have started collecting samples in accordance with the sampling regime. A minimum sample size of 800 is needed this year.
BEAR
GENERAL
After a winter of heavy snow and cold temperatures and a very wet spring, the landscape seems to be drying out fairly quickly. Air temperatures in the high nineties have increased bear activities and spring movements across the state. The number of non-hunting bear mortalities since April is approximately 50 bears, most of which were the result of motor vehicle collisions.
The yearling female bear which had been suffering from poor nutrition and was being cared for by the Wildlife Pathology Unit in Delmar has been released in Delaware county. When first received in April the bear weighed 12.5 lbs, and when released it had a live weight of 43 lbs.
NUISANCE BEARS
Since April 2003 Central Office staff have received about 25 calls regarding bears raiding bird feeders and attracted to household garbage in Albany and Greene counties.
There have been several instances reported from regional staff of houses entered by bears , with minor property damage in conjunction with reported bear feeding activities nearby.
The wet spring should increase the availability of summer bear foods and hopefully impact nuisance complaint levels this summer.
