When DEC Commissioner Grannis announced recently that the department had dropped plans that would have created antler restrictions (AR) for deer hunting in eight wildlife management units of the northern and Western Catskills. The restrictions would have meant only bucks sporting at least one antler having a minimum of three points would be legal game during the hunting season. The current statewide regulation states a legal buck is any deer having at least one antler at least three inches long.
This would have meant all yearling bucks sporting spikes or forked antlers would be protected, and basically would have meant the majority of bucks taken would be at least 2.5 years old. The plans were dropped following a public comment period that drew both strong opposition and support. DEC officials had said beforehand that that they wouldn't endorse the restrictions if more than 20 percent of the hunters in the areas were against it, which is apparently the case.
This, at least to me, was a classic case of New York’s legions of sportsmen literally shooting themselves in the foot, and making DEC’s role as a natural resource manager even more difficult than it should be. Call it special interests, demographics, or whatever, it boiled down to deer hunters not being able to agree or for that matter, compromise on an issue being supported by one group but opposed by another group. So the end result is neither group will probably be happy with the results.
Antler restrictions’ primary purpose was meant to allow bucks to live longer, thereby increasing the age of young bucks, and creating a more natural breeding ecology instated in the deer herd. The second was to restore a more natural breeding ecology which in turn would allow a greatly improved buck to doe ratio. The goal to accomplish this was to allow 50-75 percent of yearling bucks survive to the next hunting season and to encourage hunters to harvest more does. Also, bucks at that age would have larger racks, something “trophy hunters” said they’d like to see occur.
Now, before going any farther, it’s important to understand that AR is not the same as quality deer management (QDM). The latter approach involves large acreage habitat, high quality food and nutritionally high quality soil, and carefully planned culling of the resident deer herd there. If an area lacks any of these factors, the quality and antler size of the bucks will not approach true trophy status. The AR plan is more likely to produce a more balanced ratio of bucks to does, but at the cost of reduced hunter success.
In Pennsylvania, where AR was implemented as a control measure to greatly reduce the overall deer herd in selected areas, a three-year study indicated that antler restrictions were working. Pennsylvania's doe harvest increased by 65 percent to an average of 315,000. Buck harvest has dropped 24 percent to roughly 154,000. The yearling buck mortality dropped from 85 percent of all bucks harvested to 57 percent of all bucks harvested allowing them to live longer and grow bigger racks as predicted. Probably the most significant finding is that the ratio of adult does to adult bucks in the AR areas went from 14-1 to almost 2-1 in just three years of monitoring.
But like it or not, Pennsylvania is not New York in terms of habitat and hunter access to quality deer habitat. Progressively fewer and fewer hunters have access to private land in New York, meaning more are forced to hunt state forests or other public land. This group is also the one that has been complaining that they are seeing fewer deer with each passing season, and most must rely on antlerless pemits to put venison in their freezers. So if a spike-horn or similar buck presents a shot, you can bet the majority won’t pass the opportunity up.
Conversely, large acreage landowners or leasers who post their properties do have the luxury of practicing AR. The fly in the ointment there is they often fail to harvest a few does each year to try and keep the buck-doe ratio more even. So they may enjoy seeing lots of deer, but the majority will be does and yearlings. And unless the land’s nutritional habitat capacity is conducive to growing larger antlers, the racks may never approach trophy size, regardless of the buck’s age. The best examples of this is the average antler size of bucks in mineral-rich western New York counties compared with those found in the big woods of the Adirondacks and Catskills, where the soil minerals are no where near as rich. So even in private areas where AR is voluntarily implemented, the results in terms of producing bigger racks may be disappointing.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that more hunters were opposed to mandatory AR than were supportive of it since we’ve been hearing increasingly more negative reactions from deer hunters in general in the past few years. Most complain of lacking places to hunt now, or seeing fewer deer than in past years, or don’t have the time to hunt they once did. But the bottom line is deer hunters in general are older, and much like other group conflicts, it seems like one of those “us against them” situation like has existed among bowhunters, muzzleloader hunters and gun hunters, pitting each against the others. This special interest division is also evident in outdoor activities that involve fishing such as fly-fishing or artificials-only regulated waters.
So it’s no small wonder that when the DEC considers implementing special regulations or new seasonal dates supported by one group that another opposing group will make their voices heard. And, more often than not, the end result is that no one is satisfied.