Managing The Deer Population On Your Farm
As a landowner, you have considerable influence on the deer population on your property. Deer have very few natural predators so deer hunting and vehicle accidents are the 2 biggest sources of deer mortality. One of the most important questions a landowner needs to answer is whether you want more deer, fewer deer or would like to keep the numbers about the same. A deer home range is about 640 acres so if you own or control less than that, the deer will probably leave your property at times. Deer densities in Ohio range from about 5 to 50 per square mile (640 acres). Unfortunately, deer distribution is not even and if conditions are favorable for deer you may have a disproportionate number of deer on your farm. Develop your best guess as to the number of deer on your farm then base your management decisions on that number. The general guidelines below should help determine how to achieve your deer management goals.
FOR KEEPING DEER NUMBERS THE SAME – To keep deer numbers constant in your area you need to remove the number of deer from natural reproduction each year. About 1/3 of the deer you see in the fall are fawns from that year's spring so you should plan to harvest 1/3 of your population estimate. For example, if you think you have about 30 deer on your farm, you should kill about 10 and 7 or 8 (75%) of these deer should be antlerless deer.
FOR REDUCING DEER NUMBERS – The key to reducing deer numbers in an area is killing does. Using the 30 deer figure from above, you would need to kill more than 8 does to see any reduction in deer numbers over time. The more does you kill, the sooner you will see results. Remember that deer travel quite a bit and if your neighbors do not follow a similar management pattern, results may not be what you want or as quickly as you want.
The landowner needs to establish the rules for hunters if you want to accomplish your goals. Ohio deer hunters will take does given the opportunity but the lure of a buck is what brings most hunters to the field. Last year, 64% of the deer killed in Ohio were antlerless deer. The Ohio Division of Wildlife feels that if this trend continues and we gain better access to private lands, overall deer numbers will go down.