Here is a look at the deer take numbers in New York for the past 14 years.
I had to dig like a bastard to find these as it does not appear that the DEC has
historical numbers. None that I could find anyway. Many of them came from
press releases I found in Google archives.
| Year | Take |
| 2007 | 220,000 |
| 2006 | 189,100 |
| 2005 | 180,200 |
| 2004 | 208,000 |
| 2003 | 253,000 |
| 2002 | 308,000 |
| 2001 | 282,000 |
| 2000 | 295,000 |
| 1999 | 256,000 |
| 1998 | 231,000 |
| 1997 | 207,855 |
| 1996 | 196,110 |
| 1995 | 188,284 |
| 1994 | 165,600 |
I wish I could find the numbers prior to the 1994 but I cannot. What I do know is that the 1993-1994
winter was harsh. As you can see, it took a toll on the deer take for a few years before skyrocketing
again and then falling again after the harsh winters we had a few years ago. Or was it the harsh winters?
It is hard to tell.
What is interesting is how many deer were taken in New York this year with license sales being so low.
We have all complained just a tad in the past few seasons about low deer numbers. I felt they came back
last season in my area and I think there are going to be a lot deer next season in my area. Deer hunting
pressure was null and void here last year. I am already
seeing groups of 10-15 deer in fields this spring when in years past I was lucky if I saw five. It won't
surprise me if the hunting community in some regions starts to complain (again) that there are too many
does within the next couple of seasons.
But will they? I don't know because it is hard to tell. Did the take go way down in 2004 because of hard winters
prior to that or did we got a little too liberal with the DMPs? Probably both. As the data would indicate, years after
hard winters generally lead to lower deer take for the next couple of seasons. However, we were not allowing hunters
to shoot as many deer in 1994 as we do today. We also saw a skyrocket in DMPs in those peak years around the turn of the century.
Those factors are a stumbling block for me as far as interpreting the data is concerned.
There definately does not appear to be much of a correlation between license sales and deer take. This was one of the lowest
years of license sales in New York ever. Yet, over the last 14 years there have only been six seasons that had a higher deer take
than last year. All six of those seasons were right in a row. But license sales were way down?
If you give hunters the tags then they will shoot the deer!
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Rob Taylor, Founder, EmpireHunting.com
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