New deer strategy: Will the plan work?

The N.C. Wildlife Resources held nine public hearings across the state during September to get public input on proposed changes to hunting, fishing and trapping laws for 2013-14.

Most changes weren’t eye-openers, except for two (H 19, H 20) that caught the attention of many deer hunters.

H 19 would “ease requirements” for getting a depredation permit to harvest deer, plus remove the $50 minimum-damage-to-crops-or-property rule now needed to obtain a permit. H 20 would ease restrictions on those “who kill wildlife in the act of depredation” but don’t possess a permit. It also would allow better use for food of deer taken with permits but also “remove the limit on the number of deer that can be taken for food.”

Obviously, parts of these proposals make sense, mainly better use of venison obtained by shooting crop-destroying deer. Until Aug. 1, 2010, landowners with depredation permits couldn’t give the venison to anyone, so deer were left in fields. It’s still not a requirement for depredation-permit deer to go to food banks, churches, soup kitchens or other such organizations.

Some hunting groups and individuals view easing of requirements for depredation kills as potentially wasteful without a mechanism to distribute venison.

The N.C. Bowhunters Association sent a letter to the Commission asking it to consider limiting hunters in the Central, Northwestern and Western sections to one buck per season and reduce the Eastern buck limit from four to two deer, while retaining the statewide 6-deer limit. As an alternative, NCBA proposed restricting any buck taken beyond one a minimum outside antler spread of approximately 14 inches.

The NCBA said that if it’s the Commission’s goal to reduce the size of the state’s deer herd, bag limits should target doe deer, not all deer, which its proposals would do. The NCBA noted that such harvest rules also would improve the quality of North Carolina’s bucks and draw more non-resident hunters, boosting the state’s economy. Moreover, surveys show that 80 percent of North Carolina’s deer hunters would approve measures to boost antler quality.

After Kentucky adopted a one-buck rule, its take of Boone-and-Crockett deer skyrocketed. Today, the Bluegrass State is a national deer-hunting destination. Five years ago, Mississippi adopted minimum inside spreads (12 to 16 inches) and minimum beam lengths (15 to 20 inches), depending on the region. Magnolia State hunters took 280,000 deer in 2011-12 (100,000 more than North Carolina), many of them trophies.

The Commission could propose such future regulations to see how deer hunters respond at public hearings. If approved by hunters and tried, it’d be interesting to see if they’d boost buck quality while reducing overall deer numbers.

If not, the Commission could always return to its present approach.