We're sure that the bonus antlerless tags increased our reported either-sex deer harvest. But we will be evaluating that program further to see if we can tell how many of those who used bonus antlerless report cards also used all of the tags on their regular licenses. Our doe harvest has been increasing over the long term anyway, but the bonus antlerless program could have affected the actual reporting rate for antlerless deer. A guy in the Coastal Plain may have been hesitant to report a third doe if he wanted to save one of his four buck tags. Situations like that may now be encouraging a higher reported harvest of doe deer through the bonus antlerless report cards."

North Carolina's total deer population is estimated at 1.25 million animals. When plugged into population models, three successive increases in deer harvests could result in an increase in computer-generated population models. However, the deer herd could in reality be stabilized or shrinking due to a decrease in available habitat with the conversion of farms and forests to urbanized settings.

One alarming situation that could severely and adversely affect North Carolina's deer herd in the future would be the introduction of chronic wasting disease or CWD. In 2003, the state conducted a study of 1,400 deer to see if there was any indication of the disease in North Carolina. In 2007-08, biologists sampled another 1,400 deer. Currently, the closest area with CWD in deer is in West Virginia.

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, and this would have severe consequences for future North Carolina deer hunting. The commission adopted rules banning the importation of certain carcass parts from areas with CWD. Hunters can do their part by reading these rules in the regulations digest before hunting in other states.

Another potential cause of a high harvest rate last year may have been the economy. High prices are on the minds of everyone, including hunters. The price of meat has risen rapidly along with the price of other foods, which could cause some hunters to kill more does, for example, than they would have been willing to do in the past. But Stanford said an increased desire to fill the freezer with venison was probably offset by other factors.

"A small part of 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."

Another factor that may have resulted in increased hunter effort is a dip in the economy. Unemployed workers in the construction industry often spend more time hunting. But again, last fall the price of gas was high enough that an increase in hunting effort by some hunters may have been offset by a decrease in effort by other hunters.

A tiny part of the increase in harvest can be attributed to the Urban Archery season, which was first opened in January 2008; hunters in the program that year killed a modest 53 deer. During the January 2009 urban archery season, 10 areas participated and the total harvest was 83 deer.