Post by: billythekidrock on October 02, 2008, 04:57:53 PM
Published October 01, 2008
Blacktail harvest fluctuates
Allen Thomas
By the time the deer seasons in Southwest Washington conclude in December, between 5,000 and 6,000 animals probably will have been taken.
Given good hunting conditions, the number likely will be near the high end. If it's hot and dry, or if there are access restrictions because of fire danger, the number will be near the low end.
Unlike fish populations, which can fluctuate significantly year to year, blacktail deer numbers in Clark, Skamania, Klickitat, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum and Lewis counties change in small increments.
Weather reigns
The local deer harvest is much more affected by weather, access and how much effort individual hunters put out, said Eric Holman, a biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"Our success rates have been very similar over the course of many years, bouncing around between 15 percent and 20 percent," Holman said. "About one in five guys gets a deer. Those who really try hard are probably way higher than that. Those who just buy a tag and go looking for elk, or go out to enjoy the woods or hang out with friends don't get one as regularly."
While much was made about the huge snowfall last winter, deer are less affected, he said.
That's because blacktails live in low-elevation units such as Washougal, Winston, Ryderwood and Coweeman, not the high country of Siouxon, Lewis River and Packwood.
"There's not all that many deer living in those higher elevation places to begin with,'' Holman said. "Deer have a hard time making a living high up in the Cascades. The strength of the population is at low-elevation places. You see that in the harvest, you see that when you survey them."
Subtle effects
While deer are less susceptible to harsh winter conditions, the weather can play in a role in population levels.
"It was still a bad winter with record snowfall in the southern Cascades,'' Holman said. "It was rainy and cold and wet for a long time. That's still hard on them even though they don't live in a place that might load up with 5 feet of snow. It's not an easy condition to be living in."
What will happen, he said, are more subtle effects, such as does aborting or reabsorbing their fetuses, or giving birth to a single fawn, not twins.
"The winter was bad, but probably did not cause a lot of direct mortality on what would have been legal animals for this year's hunting season," Holman said. "You could have some reduction in yearling bucks available this year that would have been fawns going through this prior winter."
With continued development and fragmentation of deer habitat, blacktail populations are on a slow decline in Southwest Washington, he said.
Grayback worries
State officials are especially concerned with deer numbers in Klickitat County, particularly in the Grayback game unit.
Surveys following the hunting seasons in 2004 and 2005 tallied poor ratios of bucks to does in Grayback. The numbers were an abysmal six bucks per 100 does in 2004 and two per 100 in 2005.
The goal is 15 bucks per 100 does, a goal normally achieved one unit to the east of Grayback in East Klickitat.
So in 2006, a three-point antler minimum was initiated for bucks and the season was shortened to 14 days. As expected, the post-season ratio improved to 16 bucks per 100 does in 2006 and 22 bucks per 100 does in 2007.
The March survey at the Klickitat Wildlife Area tallied 48 fawns per 100 adults this year, which is right on the long-term average.
Still, the agency has counted fewer deer each spring for the past five years.
"The overall population of deer, and the overall harvest, does not seem to be as robust as it once was," Holman said. "There are a few things that indicate the Grayback deer population isn't doing as well as we would like, or as well as it was six to 10 years ago."
This apparent overall decline in deer numbers comes despite good fawn-to-adult spring ratios for several years.
"It's been strong, it's been solid, yet the population doesn't seem to grow, the harvest doesn't increase," he said. "These are standardized routes, done since the 1960s. While the ratio of young animals to adults in the population has been good, there's a strong trend downward in the number of deer we're able to find on these routes going back to a high point around 2000."
The agency also is getting few complaints about deer damaging agriculture.
"That again tells you the population isn't real high or there'd be more people complaining,'' Holman said.
Hair-loss syndrome was worked its way east and is now in the Klickitat population. Ten percent of the deer surveyed in the spring had hair loss.
"That has a way of sapping the strength out of a population," he said. "It's just another reason to try to be conservative with harvest on the female side of the population."
Post by: S.O.B on October 02, 2008, 05:27:22 PM
Post by: MooseStock on October 02, 2008, 05:34:59 PM