[font="verdana,helvetica,sans-serif, arial"]Here is an article. From what I hear from NY hunters pretty right on. About not seeing deer

02/23/06

[font="verdana,helvetica,sans-serif, arial"]Area deer take down
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By Jake Palmateer
Staff Writer

DAVENPORT — When one hunter comes into Losie’s Gun Shop and complains about a lack of deer in the area, he is probably a bad hunter, owner Jim Losie said Wednesday.

"But when you get 300 guys coming here and saying it, you know it’s a problem," Losie said.

Losie, who has been in the gun-shop and hunting-supply business for 26 years, said that in the last three years, more hunters have been complaining about a lack of deer — especially quality bucks — than ever before.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation announced Tuesday that hunters harvested 14 percent fewer deer in 2005 than in 2004.

[align=left]Advertisement[/align] In Chenango, Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie counties, the drop was 11 percent. But DEC statistics show a 49 percent decline in the area deer take since 2002.

Losie said hunters from outside the area, who have traditionally been a boon for local businesses such as hotels and restaurants during what is otherwise a slow time of year, are beginning to opt for Canada.

They don’t want to waste their money in New York, he said.

DEC officials said the statewide drop is the result of specific management actions designed to bring the deer population down from the high levels of 2002 and 2003. But they said severe winters resulted in deer population declines that were greater than expected.

[align=center]What's Related[/align][*]Early hunting questioned Losie said coyotes are one of the major causes in the decline in this area.

"The fawns are just getting riddled by coyotes," Losie said.

One woman who bought a trail camera from him reported seeing 15 to 18 fawns taken by coyotes to their den in one week, Losie said.

However, a former DEC commissioner said Wednesday there are greater factors at work.

"Since 1960, we lost 100,000 small dairy farms," Michael Zagata of West Davenport said.

The brushy, early stages of reforestation on the former farmland, as well as active logging, created ideal conditions for deer and other wildlife, Zagata said.

"We got used to it," Zagata said.

But as the hunters of that time aged, the landscape also aged, he said.

The state now has 10 million acres of pole timber, Zagata said, which limits sunlight to the forest floor.

"No sunlight, no plants. No plants, no deer food," Zagata said.

Zagata said deer are also contributing to a decline in other wildlife and plant species in the state as they consume young oak trees and other forage on the forest floor.

Losie said hunters are frustrated by the DEC for not doing more to improve the deer herd.

Most hunters he encounters at his shop, Losie said, want to see a year-round hunting season for coyotes, antler-point restrictions to limit the harvesting of young bucks and better land-management practices on state land to improve deer forage.

In an effort to rebuild the herd, the state in 2005 issued 35 percent fewer deer-management permits — known among hunters as doe permits.

They also instituted a pilot program in parts of Ulster County that allowed hunters to only harvest bucks with more than three points on either of their two antlers.

But DEC officials said they don’t want a return to the deer population levels of 2002 because of concern over damage to agriculture, forest regeneration, landscaping or vehicle accidents.

Zagata said there is no easy solution to the deer-herd question.

"We actually need to get the (deer) numbers lower in conjunction with active forest management on a large scale," Zagata said. "Believe it or not, we have too many deer for the habitat to support."

A reduction in the deer herd now, combined with the creation of better habitat, would result in a larger and higher-quality deer herd in the future, he said.

But Zagata said any land-management practice that includes logging on protected state land will run into opposition.

We have a public that wants to protect every tree that grows, Zagata said.

"There are millions of acres (in the state) that are not productive for wildlife," Zagata said. "We can literally protect things to death."

As the forests age, wildlife, plant and tree species will become less diverse and many will disappear, Zagata said.