Photo by Charles R. Brower III

The white-tailed deer is among the most adaptable creatures on the planet, exploiting every potential North American habitat to the maximum degree of success. From the state's public and private timberlands to agricultural lands to the deepest swamps and even to the most urbanized settings, deer are supported at extremely dense deer densities all across the Southeast. The state of North Carolina is no exception.

"Our 2004 deer harvest was the second highest we've ever seen," said Evin Stanford, the North Carolina Wildlife Commission's deer biologist. "It was a higher harvest than in 2003. Three of the state's highest reported deer harvests have occurred in the last four years."

The total Tar Heel hunter deer harvest in 2001 was 142,847 and set the state's all-time record. In 2002, the harvest dipped to 118,174. In 2003, it increased to 134,507. In 2004, it rebounded even more to a preliminary total of 140,311. Furthermore, last year's total may even rise a bit higher once late harvest report books have been turned in; those numbers have not been added to the 140,311 figure.

The drop in harvest in 2002 is thought to be connected to a couple of factors. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, hit the deer herd hard in the northeastern counties in District 1. A good mast crop that season also kept deer from moving around all across the state, making them difficult for hunters to find. Baiting is a popular and legal method for hunting deer on private lands. But if deer find plenty of acorns in the woods, they are less likely to feed on corn or planted food plots, such as clover, wheat and rye, which are the statewide standard deer-attracting food sources among hunters.

A direct hit from Hurricane Isabel in the District 1 counties also made it difficult for hunters to get around in the woods and swamps. They spent time attending to other problems associated with hurricane damage instead of hunting, including repairing hunting camps, clearing trees from access roads and repairing permanent tree stands.

"If you look at our deer population models, we see a stable or decreasing trend across the state," Stanford said. "Our modeling shows a decreasing population at the coast and our hearings in the coastal districts have had people telling us the deer in those districts have been "deleted and depleted."

At the commission's public hearing at the Bladen County courthouse, several hunters requested a ban on taking antlerless deer at Suggs Mill Pond and at Bladen Lakes State Forest game lands, claiming that most of the deer had been taken by hunters and the population could not recover as long as does continued to be harvested.

Still, in spite of high EHD incidence and good mast crops across the rest of the state, the harvest level still went back up. However, EHD may still have been a major factor in keeping the harvest low during 2003 in districts 1 and 2 in the Coastal Plain.

But then the harvest jumped up dramatically by 15 percent in District 1 during 2004. That was the highest increase of any section of the state. The fact that hunter effort returned to normal levels after the hurricane damage had been repaired was probably one reason for the increased harvest. Stanford also feels there could have been more damage to the deer population by EHD than there had been in some of the other counties and that the population had finally recovered.

"In Halifax County and in Northampton County in District 1, we had more reports of hemorrhagic disease, but there could have been a higher level of activity in District 1," he said. "It may have been that there were just fewer reports, but the incidence of disease was just as severe."