The 2007-08 deer season was an amazing time for North Carolina's hunters. The state's deer hunters not only set a harvest record, but the harvest showed a distinct shift in hunter preference for the first time in many years. For many years, the buck-to-doe ratio of harvested deer had hovered around 60 to 62 percent, favoring bucks over does long after the liberalization of regulations pertaining to the taking of antlerless deer across the state have been in effect. However, a much larger proportion of antlerless deer compared with antlered bucks was taken in 2007-08, as well as a much larger total harvest of antlerless deer.

During the 2006-07 season, approximately 55.4 percent of the total deer harvest of 154,273 deer consisted of antlered bucks. During the 2007-08 season, approximately 48.6 percent of the total deer harvest consisted of antlered bucks. The complete deer harvest figures for the 2007-08 hunting season included 83,665 antlered bucks, 10,887 button bucks and 77,434 does. The total harvest of 171,986 deer set a new harvest record, although the antlered buck harvest was only the second highest on record, following on the heels of the record antlered buck harvest of 85,459 set in 2006-07.

Evin Stanford is the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission's surveys and research biologist for deer, turkeys and wild boar. He keeps track of the harvest data for big-game animals and therefore has a better handle on the pulse of the deer herd and deer hunting effort than anyone else in the state.

"The deer herd is stabilizing across most of the state," Stanford said. "Therefore, it would not be unusual for the total harvest numbers to go up and down somewhere around the peak numbers we are seeing. A slight decline in the buck harvest is not significant over one year's time. It's probably just an anomaly.

Weather and disease are the factors that affect the deer harvest. Disease can reduce the number of deer available to hunters in areas where hemorrhagic disease is present. Severe winter weather in the mountains affects the harvest in that area because it is a short season, and if hunters can't get out, the harvest can be relatively low. We will be watching the long-term data several years to see whether the decline in the antlered buck harvest will continue."

In contrast to the apparently insignificant decline in the antlered buck harvest, the increase in the number of antlerless deer harvested appears to be very significant. An increase in antlerless deer harvest may represent a shift in hunter attitudes, since the either-sex hunting seasons in 2007-08 were essentially the same as in several hunting seasons.

One reason for the increased either-sex harvest may have been the use of bonus antlerless harvest report cards. For the first time, during the 2007 hunting season, hunters with access to private lands did not have to be involved with the Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) to have the opportunity to harvest additional antlerless deer above the six antlerless deer maximum allowed under the standard hunting regulations.

Of these six total deer, two could be antlered bucks in the two-buck zone and four could be antlered bucks in the four-buck zone in eastern counties. Bonus harvest report cards applied only to private land in areas with a maximum-length, either-sex season. Hunters could obtain one or two of them per visit to a license agent with no limit for harvesting antlerless deer over the course of the hunting season. An increased doe harvest may have taken pressure off antlered bucks, as hunters filled their available hunting time by taking antlerless deer instead of antlered bucks.