With a total deer herd estimated at 1.25 million animals, the successive increase in deer harvest may actually result in an increase in the population models. The population may therefore actually still be increasing. Only time will tell if this is just one of the peaks to be followed at some point in the deer harvest over the long term during the coming seasons.

One alarming situation that could severely and adversely affect the deer herd in the future would be the introduction of chronic wasting disease or CWD. In 2003, the state conducted a study of 1,000 deer to see if there was any indication of the disease in North Carolina. Currently, the closest area with CWD in deer is in West Virginia.

"We will be duplicating our CWD study effort every five years, so we will be doing it again this year (2008)," Stanford said. "We will encounter a hunter and ask to take the obex (a small part of the brain stem) and lymph nodes in the neck for analysis. We would appreciate everybody's cooperation if a commission employee comes up at a check station or processor and asks for the hunter's help with the study. Each sample has to be a certain distance from any other sample, so we will only be sampling one deer from any localized area."

CWD has never been documented in North Carolina. The disease is always fatal. If an outbreak occurred, the commission would try to control and eliminate the disease through testing large numbers of deer and trying to bring deer densities down to stop the spread of the disease. The commission adopted rules, which are in the Regulations Digest, banning the importation of certain carcass parts from areas with CWD. Hunters can do their part by reading these rules before hunting in other states.

One thing on every hunter's mind is the price of meat, which has risen rapidly along with the price of other foods. But Stanford said an increased desire to fill the freezer with venison was probably offset by other factors.

"The increase in deer harvest could have resulted from those hunters who looked at the food value of venison," Stanford said. "But that would probably be more than offset by the price of fuel and travel to get to a hunting area."

A tiny increase in harvest can be attributed to the Urban Archery season, which was first opened in January 2008. These statistics are included in the 2007-08 harvest data. In Elkin, 49 deer, including four antlered bucks, two button bucks and 39 does, were harvested. At the airport in Washington County, four deer, including two antlered bucks, one button buck and one doe, were taken.