(UPDATED) New tight hunting regs created deep cuts in Ohio wildlife area deer harvest

The Ohio Division of Wildlife’s efforts at cutting back the deer kill on wildlife hunting areas worked even better than anticipated last season, significantly reducing the total harvest on such holdings.

And unless hunter attitude surveys squeal any loud opposition, the restrictions will remain for at least the 2019-2020 Ohio deer-hunting season. Or better still, the state’s deer management supervisor hopes, through the 2020-2021 Ohio deer-hunting season.

The rule states that for deer hunting on wildlife areas, hunters can take only one antlerless deer from public hunting areas per license year, and require that only antlered deer be harvested on public land following the last day of the statewide general firearms deer-hunting season.

Consequently, says Mike Tonkovich, the Wildlife Division biologist who oversees the state’s entire deer management program, far fewer deer were taken on public hunting areas during the 2018-2019 deer hunting season than during its 2017-2018 counterpart.

In fact, the decline was significant, says Tonkovich.

“What one needs to do is put the total deer harvest into two piles: those taken on private property and those taken on public land,” Tonkovich says.

While the 2018-2019 deer kill (called “harvest in the parlance of wildlife biologists) on private lands was down five percent, it actually fell by almost 35 percent on public lands. In real numbers the public land deer kill last season was 10,864 animals while in 2017-2018 that figure was 16,625 animals, Tonkovich says.

“The five percent is insignificant, but the 35 percent is a lot,” he said.

Broken down even further, the antlered kill on public land fell 19 percent last season while the antlerless season dropped a whopping 44 percent, Tonkovich says.

“The numbers surprised even us,” Tonkovich said.

Tonkovich said the rules will need at least one more season to better assess their impact and “ideally three years.”

Behind the rules was the intent to build up the number of deer that utilize public wildlife areas in an effort to help maximize hunter interest. Should public lands hunters see animals it is thought this activity will help sustain their drive to continue hunting.

Yet at the “end of the day, if this rule does not impress the overall hunter attitude survey this regulation is gone,” Tonkovich also says.

Those surveys are consequently vital for biologists in order to better calibrate deer management strategies and the regulations that go with such work, Tonkovich says.

“Unfortunately, we send out 10,000 surveys but the return response is not great,” he said. “We really do need to ramp up the response rate.”

The Wildlife Division will present its 2019-2020 deer-hunting regulation proposals February 13 before the eight-member Ohio Wildlife Council, though “in all honesty hunters ought not to expect any dramatic changes,” Tonkovich says.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net