Hunters, especially deer, bear and turkey hunters, are often mesmerized by numbers – specifically, the harvest numbers of deer, bear or turkeys taken, from areas they hunt as well as those from areas they'd like to hunt. The same could probably be said of elk hunters out West. So, for all you hunters' edification, here's a bunch of harvest figures from last year's deer and bear seasons. Unfortunately, the DEC doesn't have the final 2006 turkey harvest figures available, but it advised me that those figures, along with the winter flock survey, survival/banding study, spring harvest, summer productivity and fall harvest, will be available later this month
During the 2006-07 deer hunting seasons, New York hunters harvested slightly more than 189,100 deer, including approximately 96,600 bucks and 92,500 antlerless deer. After three years of declining deer takes, results from this past season represent a slight increase from the 2005 deer harvest. The DEC said the slight increase was expected following management actions in 2004 and 2005 intended to rebuild and stabilize the deer population in many areas of the state, since many Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) were below desired levels.
Western and West-Central New York continues to lead the state in total deer harvest densities, with the top five counties being: Yates County (10.4 total deer per sq.miile), Genesee County (9.4 total deer/mi), Tompkins County (8.5 total deer/mi), Ontario County (8.3 total deer/mi), and Tioga County (8.1 total deer/mi). In comparison, Chenango County deer harvest density last fall was 3.0 total deer per sq. mile, or nearly a third less than the top counties.
In 2006, muzzleloader hunting once again gained in popularity with over 220,000 hunters holding muzzleloading licenses and a total take of more than 15,700 deer, 67 percent of which were antlerless. This is the highest muzzleloading take on record. One reason the harvest was so large probably was due to fewer DMPs being issued. So more hunters used the muzzleloader season to take an antlerless deer. New York's 200,000 archers also faired well in 2006, with a take of almost 29,500 deer. Bowhunters continued to show a strong preference for taking bucks, which comprised 65 percent of their harvest, while passing up does. The top five counties in New York for buck harvest density were: Allegany County (4.2 bucks/mile), Yates County (3.9 bucks/mi), Tompkins County (3.6 bucks/mi), Wyoming County (3.6 bucks/mi), and Orange County (3.6 bucks/mi). Chenango County's buck/mile density rate was 3.0, up 0.4 from the 2005 season. Despite testing over 7,900 deer, including 1,800 deer from the CWD Containment Area in Oneida and Herkimer counties in 2006, no new cases were detected.
Chenango County yielded an estimated 4,628 deer to hunters last fall with 2,769 being antlered bucks. This compares to the 2,982 deer taken in 2005 of which 2,365 were antlered bucks. Almost no antlerless management permits were issued in WMU 7M for the 2005 season, hence the much lower take in Chenango. Other 2006 county deer harvests were: Broome 1,601 bucks/2,971 total deer; Cortland 1,032/2,073; Delaware 2,847/3,323; Madison 1,406/2,798; Oneida 2,067/3,647; Otsego 2,758/4,454; and Tompkins County 1,789/4,198.
Bear hunters also did quite welll last fall. Based on recent years' harvests, the Catskill region is the place to go for the best opportunity to take a bruin, as 365 bears were taken in that region last year. Hunters harvested 318 bears in the Adirondack bear range and 113 bears in the Allegany bear range. Sullivan County produced the largest bear harvest with 115, followed closely by Ulster with 87. It was the second consecutive year of below-average bear harvest in the Adirondacks, but for good reason.
In recent years, the Early Season Adirondack harvest has accounted for an increasing proportion of the overall Adirondack range bear take. However, this past year, the Early Season harvest was 70 percent below the 10-year average. An abundance of berries and other natural foods during late summer and early fall may have reduced bear movements, making them less vulnerable to hunters in the big woods areas. Overall, bear range and populations are steadily increasing throughout many areas of the state.

Once Again, Hunting Proves To Be Safe Activity
A new report from the National Safety Council shows that accidental firearm-related fatalities remain at record lows, and accidents involving youths continue to decline significantly. The downward trends are occurring even as firearm ownership rises in the U.S. The estimated number of citizen-owned firearms in the U.S. has risen to more than 290 million, while the number of American households with at least one firearm is now about 47.8 million.
Statistics in the council's 2007 "Injury Facts" report show a 40 percent decrease in accidental firearm-related fatalities over a 10-year period ending in 2005. The report also shows firearm-related accidents involving children ages 14 and under declined 69 percent between 1995 and 2003. Education in awareness of gun safety and responsible firearms storage, as taught via programs by the NRA, NSSF, SCI, state DNRs and others, has no doubt played a significant role in the major decline.
The council's most recent statistics show 109,277 U.S. residents died in accidents of all types in 2005. Less than 1 percent involved firearms. The most common deadly accidents involved motor vehicles, poisonings and falls, claiming 75 percent of all accidental deaths.
The declining trends reported by the National Safety Council are also supported by research available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the CDC, in the past decade, all four regions of the U.S. have witnessed dramatic declines in the number of accidental firearm-related fatalities.