Today marked the
18th archery hunt of the season, totaling 48 hours, without so much
as seeing an animal.
Note, not passing on
a deer nor failing to have one come within crossbow range. Nope,
those figures are without so much as catching a glimpse of a
departing flagged tail.
The hunts are
divided between three Lake County sites, each of which in years past
provided antlered and antlerless deer. One of the sites is located on
a friend’s property in a village that allows controlled archery
deer hunting via a community-issued permit. Another is sequestered on
a private arboretum that requires both its and a city’s permission.
The last one is “free range,” located in a township without the
legally binding demands of antler point restrictions or a doe-first
policy as is the case with the other two spots.
However, I have
taken note that over the past few years the numbers of deer I’ve
seen - and consequently recorded in a journal - has dropped. Which is
a good thing if you are the director of an arboretum or else a
village or city police chief who has to send a squad car out when a
Buick and a buck meet on a darkened highway.
For a deer hunter?
Not so much. Which got me to thinking about the weekly deer kill
updates I assemble utilizing data compiled by the Ohio Division of
Wildlife and made available each Wednesday.
I’ve have taken
note of my home county and a number of others that seem to be
struggling in reaching the same deer kill levels they did at the same
point in time one year ago. So dug a little deeper into the raw
statistics.
Mind you, this is
not a scientific report nor an in-depth research paper. Still, the
information is cool in a “huh” sort of way. If nothing else it
might provide fodder for discussion around the deer camp dinner
table.
What I did was take
Ohio’s four largest cities, their respective core county and all of
the counties adjacent to them. Then I compared these
urban/suburban/bedroom units’ respective to-date deer kills with
their comparable 2017 to-date numbers.
The idea being to
mull over whether more generous deer bag limits, increased allowance
by communities to permit controlled archery deer hunting – along
with the assumption that deer hunters are sticking closer to home –
may finally be having an impact on deer herd size in Ohio’s
urban/suburban/bedroom counties.
The cities are
Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo. Here is what I saw for
each cell, using the current November 6th, 2108 to-date figures with
their comparable November 7th, 2017 to-date figures.
Cleveland: The core
is Cuyahoga County – 381 (417); Lorain County – 548 (582); Media
County – 571 (515); Geauga County – 451 (506); Summit County –
491 (517); and Lake County – 252 (300). (I tossed out Portage
County since the only the corners of Cuyahoga and Portage meet.)
Consequently, five of the six counties have thus experienced to-date
deer kill declines.
Columbus: The core
is Franklin County – 214 (238); Fairfield County – 390 (349);
Licking County – 1,082 (1,101); Madison County – 120 (110);
Pickaway County – 133 (130); Delaware County – 417 (419); and
Union County – 249 (249, identical). Consequently, three of these
seven counties have thus far seen declines and one has seen identical
to-date numbers.
Cincinnati - The
core is Hamilton County – 565 (634); Butler County – 357 (410);
Warren County – 309 (313); and Clermont County – 614 (634). Thus,
all four counties have seen to-date deer kill declines.
Toledo – The core
is Lucas County – 235 (278); Fulton County – 156 (166); Ottawa
County – 125 (118); and Wood County – 237 (216). (I pitched Henry
County for the same reason I did for the Cuyahoga-Portage reason.)
Here, two of the four counties have seen to-date declines and two
have seen to-date increasees.
It would be easy to
dismiss such an examination since some individual county comparisons
show minuscule differences. After all, there’s not much variance in
Pickaway County’s two numbers nor those of Ottawa County.
Ah, here’s the
“but,” though. Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 37 of of them have
to-date deer kill declines when stacked up against their respective
and comparable 2017 numbers. And 14 of those 37 counties are
clustered around just these four major cities; four in the Cincinnati
and five in the Cleveland areas alone.
Perhaps even more
importantly I’ve watched a trend whereby these named counties are
generally tracking in the decline column throughout the to-date
2018-2019 weekly deer kill tallies.
As for my own Lake
County? Well, I’ve taken interest in noting the current to-date
deer kill is about 18 percent less than its comparable 2017 numbers.
Also, if my recollection is worth anything, it has continued to fall
the past few years.
If nothing else,
spending time with the numbers have helped given me a great excuse as
to why I am not seeing many deer.
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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