2005 Antlerless season boosts firearms deer harvest to 249,912

This year's firearms deer harvest fell 10 percent short of last
year's, but it was still the third-largest in Missouri history.

JEFFERSON CITY-The final portion of Missouri's 2005 firearms deer
hunting season produced a harvest of 21,922 deer. That pushes the total
firearms deer harvest to the third-largest number in modern history.

The antlerless portion of firearms deer season ran from Dec. 10 through
18. This year's antlerless hunt total was down 2,295 (9.1 percent)
from last year. The record was set in 2003, when hunters bagged 25,151
deer during the antlerless-only portion of firearms deer season.

Top counties in the antlerless hunt were Pike, with 756 deer killed,
Callaway with 675 and Boone with 628.

The Missouri Department of Conservation recorded no firearms-related
deer hunting accidents during the antlerless hunt.

The antlerless season propelled Missouri's 2005 firearms deer season
to a total of 249,912 deer checked. That is 25,417 (9.2 percent) fewer
than last year's record of 275,329.

2005 firearms deer season segments and harvests were:

--Urban, Oct. 7-10, 1,838
--Youth, Oct. 29-30, 10,577
--November - Nov. 12-33, 205,460
--Muzzleloader, Nov. 25-Dec. 4, 10,115
--Antlerless, Dec. 10-18, 21,765

The number of deer killed was down compared to last year in every
segment of firearms deer season. Conservation Department Resource
Scientist Lonnie Hansen attributes this mostly to an unusual abundance
of acorns statewide.

"In years when there are lots of acorns, deer don't have to move
much to find food, and that makes them harder for hunters to find,"
said Hansen. "Historically, hunters in heavily forested areas have the
most trouble when acorns are plentiful, because deer depend most heavily
on acorns for food in forested areas. Knowing that, we expected to see
the biggest dips in deer harvest in southwestern and southeastern
Missouri and in the Ozarks."

He said regional deer harvest figures bear out those predictions. The
largest decrease in deer harvest, 18 percent, was in the Ozarks.
Southwestern Missouri was second, with a 13-percent decrease, followed
by the southeast with a 12 percent drop and the St. Louis region with a
decrease of 11 percent. Central Missouri saw a 10 percent dip, and
northeastern Missouri experienced an 8 percent drop.

Areas least affected were those with the smallest forested acreages.
The Kansas City region experienced a drop of only 3 percent, while
northwest Missouri, dominated by grassland, saw an increase of 2 percent
in its deer harvest.

Hansen said weather played a less-important but still noticeable role
in the harvest decrease. Rain and wind kept some hunters indoors on
opening weekend, and hunters checked 30,000 fewer deer during the first
two days of the 2005 November firearms deer season than they did during
the same period last year.

The success of the Conservation Department's deer management strategy
also likely accounts for some of the harvest decrease.

"We have been applying the brakes pretty hard in northeast Missouri
for several years now," said Hansen. "We are succeeding in
increasing the doe-to-buck harvest ratio to check the growth of the deer
herd in some areas and reduce deer numbers in others. At some point in
time, given the number of does we are taking, we hope to see fewer deer
harvested because we have fewer deer."

The Conservation Department recorded 11 firearms-related deer hunting
accidents during the 36 days of firearms deer hunting. Two of the
accidents resulted in hunter deaths.

Archery deer hunting continues through Jan. 15 in Missouri. Archers
have harvested more than 30,000 deer in recent years. Added to the
firearms harvest, this puts Missouri's annual deer kill near 300,000.