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46 °F Forecast | Road Cams Wednesday, February 25, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend February 5, 2004 Draft strategies for black-tailed deer leaves hunters very frustrated By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Hunters of black-tailed deer could see shorter seasons, mandatory check-ins of killed bucks and other changes as part of a new five-year plan to help turn around western Oregon’s declining deer populations. Options also include dropping does from the archery season and changing the buck bag limit from forked horns to deer with a visible antler. And proposal drafts also include the possibility of opening buck hunting during the one-week Cascade elk-rifle season that now splits the black-tail hunt each fall. Options, however, do not include banning all antlerless deer hunts or moving to a controlled-hunt format used for most mule deer buck hunting. The options are part of a set of draft strategies amassed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to slow or help reverse the downward spiral black- tails are suffering in the once deer-rich woods of western Oregon. The problems, according to wildlife biologists, are primarily degrading habitat and disease, with predation and other issues likely causing deer numbers and buck ratios to plummet throughout much of the black-tails’ range. Advertisement "Habitat, without a doubt, is the main factor," says Mark Vargas, an ODFW wildlife biologist in Central Point. "But we can’t control habitat. We’re not a land-based agency. All we can control are (hunting) seasons. It’s frustrating." Agency biologists will fan out across western Oregon during the next two weeks, including Feb. 12 in Medford, to gather public input on the various options. Already dissent is brewing amid Oregon’s frustrated deer hunters. Leaders of the 10,000-member Oregon Hunters Association are bristling that the agency is asking hunters to shoulder the black-tail burden without scientific proof that doing so will help at all. John Thiebes, the OHA’s field coordinator and a former ODFW wildlife biologist, believes black-tails are in trouble and that something must be done. But curbing buck hunting likely isn’t the elixir. "If it looks like hunters are causing a problem, I don’t think there’s a hunter out there who wouldn’t support a change in the season," says Thiebes, of Medford. "If the buck season were to be reduced, it needs to be supported by sound biological information suggesting that the reduction would increase the deer population, and (the ODFW) hasn’t shown us that." There’s a good reason for that. The data doesn’t exist. But waiting for proof-positive that changing seasons will help may not come in time. "Hunting’s probably not what’s driving the population," says Tom Thornton, the ODFW’s game program manager who drafted the strategies. "But the feeling is that now is the time to be more conservative in hunting regulations. "How bad would it have to get before other folks say it’s time to make a change?" The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission says it’s bad enough now. They asked the ODFW to draft the strategies, gather public comment this month and report back in March. The commission then will discuss what forms of change should be done, then vote on that package in June. The story of the black-tail’s demise is as fuzzy as it is troublesome. Black-tails are so hard to study and so tough to survey that the ODFW doesn’t even have a black-tail population estimate. For decades, biologists have looked at trends and comparisons of such things as numbers of deer counted on set routes annually and the ratio of bucks to does. The numbers are good at helping judge whether the herds were doing better or worse over time, without ever revealing how good "good" was, or how bad "bad" is. "Of all the ungulate (hoofed) species, black-tails are, by far, the most difficult to survey, just because of the behavior of the critters and the dense habitat they’re in." What biologists do know is that buck ratios that regularly hit more than 40 bucks per 100 does in the 1960s are down to 25 bucks per 100 does — and less in many areas. Over that time, cutbacks in federal logging and increased wildfire suppression have reduced good forage habitat, Vargas says. More rural development fragments shrinking usable range and break-outs of several diseases slicing into deer populations have all hammered black-tails, Vargas says. But no one knows just how hard a hit the deer have taken. Thornton says installing such elements as mandatory reporting of hunter success and failure, and requiring tooth samples be taken from all hunter-killed bucks, could over time generate population estimates and break-downs of the age structure of the herds. "What you’re hoping to do is build a model of that population," Thornton says. The OHA’s Thiebes, who stumped for more collection of biological data during his 30 years in the ODFW, isn’t convinced hunter reports and tooth samples can generate enough information to justify any change. "They need to show us that’s the case before we can support it," Thiebes says. The OHA supports options that reduce the number of deer any single hunter can take in a year from the current maximum of four down to one. The OHA has not taken a stand on such issues as allowing buck hunting during the general elk season for hunters carrying both tags. Likewise, it has taken no stance on the bag-limit proposal. The ODFW, likewise, has not yet identified a preferred strategy, Thornton says. But agency officials and members of the seven-member commission that sets its policies believe they can’t wait to be perfect. "Different people have different thresholds for risk," Thornton says. "The commission at this time feels they would like to take action to rectify the decline." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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