Hunters of New York will be happy when all the numbers are
tallied they will find out that they have killed more whitetails during the
2013-14 than in the previous season. But depending on where those harvests
occurred, it may still not have been enough. Statewide, DMP allocations were
boosted by 18 percent in terms of availability. But only about 7 percent more
had been purchased. It is still too early to tell how high the total harvests
are but in some places of New York the antlerless harvests will need to be
higher. Heading into the 2013-14 season, DEC deer managers were pushing for an
increased antlerless harvest in the Lake Plains area. The DEC has increased the
DMP permits by 25 percent in that region. Still, the overall increase
in DMP numbers poises the state to see a higher overall deer harvest this
season. The DEC is still expecting the
total antlerless deer harvest to be higher even though they rose in big numbers
in the 2013-2014 season. Last year’s overall kill of 242,957 included a take of
209,458 in the Southern Zone. The Southern Zone tally included 98,571 bucks. Typically,
the opening weekend of the Southern Zone firearms deer season accounts for
25-30 percent of the total statewide kill. That did not happen in 2013. In years
when the opening weekend kills lags, the harvest usually catches up as the
season goes on. That, too, didn’t happen as quickly as in past years. DEC comes
up with a final deer harvest figure by calculating harvest reports in
combination with a reporting rate by hunters, which in the past has hovered
around 45 percent even though hunters are required to report their kill. The
only deer hunting opportunities left for the 2013-14 are in Suffolk County,
where there’s a special weekdays-only firearms season through Jan. 31. In my
opinion the deer tags that are being sold should be decreased in the amount of
tags each hunter gets. I personally do not think that there is that high of a
deer population that the DEC officials think that there is.
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