This isn't catch and release.... Ohio's deer population has been in steady decline for over a decade now... I'll repost from a few months ago:
"Any public land in the state of Ohio is hammered by hunters and slim pickens now. They killed less than half of the deer this year of what they killed during our week long statewide firearm season a decade ago. Yeah, less than half, which is a good indicator of the overall population numbers...
The annual week long statewide firearm season for the 2002-2003 season was:
133,391
This year's week long statewide firearm season kill number is:
65,485
So 133,391 in 2002-2003 to 67,906 in 2014, is a difference of 67,906 less making it over 50% less killed...
Heck they killed 10 thousand less this year than last year...
These are facts, and that is how severe our population has declined the past decade...
Even the armchair journalist realize it now:
"
By D'Arcy Egan, The Plain Dealer
on January 15, 2015 at 4:44 PM
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio's white-tailed deer hunters are mad as heck and want to tar and feather the Ohio Division of Wildlife decision-makers for encouraging a major slump in this year's deer hunting success.
Sportsmen's complaints will be heard at Deer Hunting Summits, held at five ODOW district offices around the Buckeye State on Saturday, Jan. 24 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. That includes the Akron District Office, 912 Portage Lakes Dr., Akron.
Before you go, reserve a seat by calling 330-644-2293 by Friday, Jan. 23. There should be room. On Wednesday, only a handful of people had registered for the summits.
Don't expect Mike Tonkovich, Ohio's head of deer management, to agree the Buckeye State needs a lot more deer. Tonkovich and his crews will develop new deer management goals this spring after this year's complaints, promising to look at loosening the controls to allow the herd to grow a little this year. But not too much.
Deer hunters complain the ODOW has simply allowed too many deer to be killed in recent years, depleting the population.
"The criticism we've received is an expected reaction," said Tonkovich. "Hunters are dissatisfied, but so were farmers with crop damage and motorists who had hit deer. We live in an agricultural state with 11 million people.
"The first time the deer harvest hit the 170,000 mark (in 2001), it was a record and everyone was excited. After harvesting more than a quarter-million deer (in 2009-2010), the harvest of about 170,000 deer this year is being considered a shame and a disgrace, the end of deer hunting in Ohio as we know it."
Tonkovich said a buck harvest that had peaked at about 90,000 antlered deer would shrink to about 65,000 this year. Ohio hunters may have been killing more bucks in recent years, but there was a sort of disconnect in 2006 and 2007. More bucks were being harvested, but the number of bucks qualifying for trophy status with the Ohio Big Buck Club did not increase.
Deer hunting in Ohio has radically changed over the last couple of decades. While gun hunters once killed 90 percent of the deer during their short week-long season, bowhunters now harvest more than 50 percent of the deer aided by a four-month campaign. More deer are now taken with crossbows, which were first allowed in 1979, rather than compound bows or traditional longbows.
No one seems to remember a promise made long ago that the crossbow hunting season would be trimmed if crossbow hunters began to take more than their share of deer.
Making Ohio hunter success more difficult has been a loss of public hunting grounds, from mismanaged wildlife areas to vast southern Ohio tracts once opened to the public by timber, coal and electric companies. The situation is so dire that ODOW surveys of resident hunters show only about 5 percent now hunt public land only. Resident hunters who sometimes hunted public land fell from 49 percent to just 32 percent from 2000 through 2012.
"
Topic: Hunting Ohio? (Read 536 times)
