By Matt Crawford
Free Press Staff Writer
The most drastic change in the way
Vermont's deer herd is managed has made it off the drawing board, and could
affect hunters as soon as October 2005.
Deer hunters in Franklin, Chittenden
and Rutland counties, get ready: Antler restrictions might be coming your
way.
Recommendations contained in a Vermont
Fish and Wildlife Department paper being released this week would put in
antler restrictions during archery, rifle and muzzleloader seasons for a
test period of five years in Wildlife Management Units B and K2.
WMU B is a large part of Franklin County
and some of northern Chittenden County. WMU K2 is in Rutland County.
"It's a great start," said hunter Harry
Dewyea of East Fairfield. "A lot of guys are going to feel that it's not
enough, but it's a huge step in the right direction."
By placing antler restrictions on deer
-- essentially making it illegal to shoot a spikehorn buck -- the department
hopes to increase the number of older, bigger-racked bucks running around
the woods.
The recommendations are part of what
the department is calling "Comprehensive Deer Management." The recommendations
arise from a deer hunter survey the department conducted last year.
Sixty-six percent of those who answered
the survey said they favor antler restrictions to limit the number of young
bucks killed each fall by hunters.
If the recommendations evolve into
a managament plan, it will represent one of the biggest changes in Vermont
deer hunting in more than a century, but
approval from the public, the seven-member Fish and Wildlife Board and the Legislature will be needed in order to proceed.
Rep. Steve Adams, R-Hartland, has introduced
a bill this legislative session that would allow the Fish and Wildlife Board
to pass antler restrictions regulations.
"There's not a biological need for
this," said John Buck, lead deer biologist for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife
Department. "This will be a social experiment -- an experiment in hunter
satisfaction."
In addition to changing the definition
of a legal buck, the state would likely recommend an increase in the antlerless
deer -- most often does -- that would be shot by hunters in WMU B and K2.
"That's something we're going to have
to experiment with," Buck said. "Clearly, if you keep one class of deer on
the range, you can't keep another. We need to balance the overall number
of deer in an area to keep in line with the carrying capacity of the habitat."
Justin Lindholm of Lindholm Sport Center
in Rutland said the department's ideas might have some support in Rutland
County, but could face opposition.
"An increase in doe permits will be
tough for some landowners," Lindholm said. "Some of them won't buy that."
Public pressure to change Vermont's
deer hunting regulations came to a head late last year in a random survey
the department mailed to 5,000 hunters. That survey, answered by 2,122 people,
showed Vermonters have a strong interest in having more mature, bigger-racked
bucks in the population.
Young bucks -- deer that are 1 years
old and are typically spikehorns or small-racked four-pointers -- make up
a majority of the bucks shot in Vermont each year. Annually, 50 to 60 percent
of the bucks shot during youth, archery, rifle and muzzleloader seasons are
1-year-olds.
Lindholm said he wonders if the push
for larger bucks will play well with the general public.
"I believe the average person in this
state won't like this QDM effort," he said. "The hunters might like it, but
the average person might think hunters are after trophies, not meat."