Deer in the northern Great Lakes States suffered through the hardest winter in recorded history last year.
Periods of deep snow and extended cold in 1995-96 led to mortality rates as high as 50 percent in some parts of northeast Minnesota. Hunters in the northeastern part of the state--Deer Hunting Zone 1--will be limited to bucks-only hunting this season for the first time in almost 20 years.
After a near-record harvest in 1995, Michigan hunters may have to change their habits if they hope to do well in 1996. Ed Langenau of the DNR says, "The severe winter in the U.P. was very hard on our herd. We found yards full of dead deer in our mortality surveys."
In Wisconsin, a state with an enormous herd estimated at 1.6 million deer--roughly double the state's management goal--antlerless and hunter's choice permits have been reduced in many areas due to the harshness of the winter. Application dates for those permits, incidentally, have been moved up to July 20.
There is one bright spot in the north country: "Southern Menominee county is sort of the Banana Belt of the U.P.," says Langenau, "deer densities were as high as 100 per square mile going into the winter, and the weather was not as severe there as it was in other parts of the U.P." By and large, however, hunters who want to find the best hunting in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan may have to head south, not north.
"Harsh winters can hurt our southern deer herds," says Langenau, "but actually last winter was comparatively mild in the lower half of the state. Deer are doing very well there." The same holds true in the southern half of Wisconsin and Minnesota where herds came through the winter in good condition.
Can anything be done to help northern deer through another winter like 1995-96? The Minnesota DNR spent over a million dollars feeding deer last winter, and the results of the feeding program are currently undergoing DNR review. The DNR ordinarily does not feed deer, but the state legislature ordered the department to run its largest deer feeding program ever during the winter of 1995-96.
The program began in northwest Minnesota on February 10. DNR staff and volunteers distributed 1,300 tons of feed in the largely agricultural regions of western and northwest Minnesota at a total cost of $260,000. Feeding in the forested northeast began March 9 and ran through early April. A special legislative appropriation of $750,000, (to be repaid from future deer license revenue), paid for the distribution of 3,800 tons of feed in northeast Minnesota.
Was this money well spent? That's the question Dave Schad, director of the DNR's deer management program, is trying to answer. Until final winter survey results are analyzed, Schad can only look back at the DNR's last experience with deer feeding in 1989. That program, while not as large as last winter's, still required 70,000 staff hours and 250,000 volunteer hours in addition to the cost of feed.
Follow-up studies showed mixed results. In the forested northeast, food distribution reached an estimated 10 percent of the herd, and only about 3 percent of deer that would have otherwise died survived thanks to the feeding program.
In the agricultural parts of northwest and western Minnesota, however, the feeding program proved much more successful. Sixty percent of the deer received food boosting overall winter survival by an estimated 20 percent. The main difference, according to Schad, is better access. "You can see the deer in agricultural areas and you know where to feed. There are good roads, making it easier to get around, and more people, which gives us a larger volunteer base."
"The DNR would rather not feed deer," says Schad, "We would much prefer to focus on food plots, cover improvement, and wetland restorations to help wintering deer in our agricultural areas. In the forests, we feel hunter's dollars could be better spent enhancing winter range by providing browse near cover, and improving summer range so our deer go into the winter in good shape. There are ethical questions, too," he continues, "is it right for us to prop up populations through feeding instead of working with habitat?"
"Nevertheless, we'll be studying this winter's feeding program carefully," Schad concludes, "I know there are people saying the DNR has already made up its mind what the study will show because we don't want to feed. But there's a feeding account now, put into place by the legislature at the same time they voted money for the additional feeding this winter. We need to figure out how to administer these funds and when and where feeding can be most effective."
Copyright (c) 1996 Philip Bourjaily. All rights reserved.
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