Managing Illinois'deer population

Brent Manning

It surprises some newcomers to Illinois to learn that for much of the first half of the century, whitetail numbers were so low that the state prohibited deer hunting. It wasn't until 1957, they learn, that Illinois reopened its deer hunting season.

Since then, Illinois' deer population has increased to its current level, which is estimated to be about 800,000. There are both positive and negative aspects to having a white-tailed deer population of that scale, and the Department of Natural Resources is constantly striving to achieve a proper balance for the state's herd.

This is the time of year, more than any other, that DNR's deer management goal faces the most scrutiny. Farmers, nurserymen, wildlife viewers, motorists and hunters each likely have very different points of view.

Our deer management goal is to provide a healthy deer herd, capable of affording recreational and viewing opportunities to Illinoisans, while at the same time controlling herd size in order to limit the number of negative interactions people have with deer, such as deer-vehicle accidents and crop damage incidents.

To help achieve our goal, in 1991 the Department began promoting antlerless-only permits to emphasize harvesting females as a way to control herd size. The concept is achieving its desired effect. The trend for hunters to "hold out" for a buck, which had progressively increased from the reopening of the modern deer season and peaked in the late 1980s, has been reversed. Female deer currently make up a much larger part of the harvest as compared to 5-10 years ago. Last year's harvest of more than 142,000 whitetails consisted of a balanced mixture of bucks and does, as well as old and young, attributable in large part to antlerless-only permits.

As a result of our emphasis on doe harvest and careful control of county quotas, yearling bucks are not as large a part of the antlered buck harvest as they were in the past. This means that more bucks in our herd have been getting older. And this means that the odds of harvesting a mature buck have actually increased.

I know there are hunters out there who will say, "We just don't see the big bucks like we used to." But our data disproves that conjecture. The number of mature bucks-those at least 3 1/2 years old, which would be considered trophies by most hunters-has gone from just a few hundred 25-35 years ago and a few thousand as recently as the 1980s to more than 7,000 in 1995 alone. Those figures prove that while controlling herd size through the issuance of anterless-only permits, the Department has maintained the big bucks that Illinois is famous for.

Finally, here's an update of over-the-counter archery deer permit sales instituted last year at license vendors. As you recall, hunters could purchase unlimited numbers of these combination permits, each consisting of one either-sex tag and one antlerless-only tag. Under these new regulations, the number of either-sex permits sold actually declined, while the number of antlerless-only permits increased significantly-as did the doe harvest. Of the additional 9,000 deer taken by bow and arrow in 1995 over 1994 archery figures, more than half were does.

Although some people feared that having no limit on the number of over-the-counter archery permits would result in abuses of they system, we found that about 99 percent of archery hunters purchased only one or two of the combination permits. In order to safeguard against local impacts on the number of bucks, however, the Department has set a harvest limit of two antlered bucks for the 1996 archery season. No limit has been placed on the number of over-the-counter permits that may be purchased, but a hunter who has an either-sex permit after taking two antlered deer may only use the permit to harvest an antlerless deer.

Spread the word to your hunting companions as you gear up for a safe and successful deer season.

Brent Manning is Director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The Department was created by Governor Jim Edgar in July 1995 and merged several natural resource agencies. Prior to that, he served as the Director of the Department of Conservation beginning in March 1991. He and his family live in Pawnee.

4 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING NOVEMBER 1996