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Mark Freeman's Commentary Does can rest easy thanks to drop in numbers For decades, one of the great mysteries among the Rogue Valley blacktail deer hunters was who among them was buying the hundreds of doe tags available for the region. Rifle hunters never stepped forward with an antlerless deer-hunting story to tell, nor did anyone bring in a set of ears to a hunting-club meeting to brag about last winter�s great doe conquest. Even those buying the antlerless tags at the Black Bird Shopping Center wouldn�t actually admit any intention of using them. No one wanted to be portrayed as someone who might jeopardize the future of the region�s deer herd by shooting a little breeding female for a few choice venison steaks and a mess of jerky. "It was really a closet thing," says Mike McMullen, a 25-year Black Bird veteran who keeps a close ear to the valley�s hunting community. "If there was someone out there who regularly hunted does, they wouldn�t admit it," McMullen says. "And if I knew of any of them, I wouldn�t rat them out, either. They�d kill me." But the fear of wearing the scarlet letter, the red A for Antlerless Deer Hunter, hasn�t surfaced for some time in Jackson County � and may never again. Depressed deer herds that show no signs of significantly rebounding have state biologists recommending no antlerless deer hunts for the fifth straight year in the Rogue Unit of eastern Jackson County. "That�s good. I�m glad," says Bill Turner, a Medford hunter and one of the region�s most vocal doe-tag opponents. "If they never have another doe tag," Turner says, "it wouldn�t be too soon for me." Chances are Turner will get his wish. Changes to habitat and shifts in predator numbers have lowered the overall deer population by one-third to one-half in eastern Jackson County, according to a state-run deer survey. The drop in just the past decade is so dramatic, and the forces against the deer so great, that a full recovery to the herd numbers of yesteryear appear highly unlikely. And that means rifle-hunting does, once a flash point for hunter debate, may be little more than a footnote in local blacktail lore. "I think it�s time to be realistic," says Merv Wolfer, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife�s district wildlife biologist in Central Point. "The hey-days of the �70s and �80s are probably gone. "There�s still adequate buck numbers for hunting, but not for antlerless tags," Wolfer says. "And maybe that�s the way it should be." Based on ODFW management objectives for blacktail deer in the Rogue Unit, the herd there should be in the 24,000-deer range. Other than cyclical ebbs and flows that had more to do with harsh winters than anything, deer populations hovered in that range for decades in the Rogue Unit east of Interstate 5 and Highway 62. ODFW�s harvest-management strategy always has dictated that, when the deer numbers are high enough, antlerless deer hunters were justifiable. Even in the early 1990s, deer populations were high enough to justify anywhere from 350-450 doe tags in the Rogue Unit. Hunters would line up at Black Bird to apply for and buy the tags. "Ninety percent of the guys I talked to in line said they would buy their tag and destroy it, just to keep the tags from going to someone else," McMullen says. Many others acted like Duane Dungannon, of Talent, who has no qualms about shooting hen mallards or cow elk but twice couldn�t make himself shoot a blacktail doe. "They flop their ears at you and you think, Oh God," Dungannon says. "It�s that whole thing about killing the breeders, that you were doing yourself more damage than good by shooting a doe. "The biology (of doe-hunting) may be sound," Dungannon says, "but the social implications are always there." But enough members of the hunting society continued to legally shoot and tag does every year, whether they admitted it to each other or not. As doe hunts continued through the early 1990s, biologists began noticing a steady decline in the deer they counted during spring census routes. "We didn�t believe it, the first year or two," Wolfer says. "We didn�t really think it was happening." Then more evidence of low deer numbers began to mount. Namely, buck harvest dropped from about 1,900 in the 1994 general season to 1,250 in �95. "That�s when we started thinking that we better start believing our counts," Wolfer says. Agency biologists were ready to dump doe tags in 1996. But they kept a special hunt with 400 tags allocated mainly to collect jaw samples from hunter-killed deer as part of a large blacktail mortality study in the South Cascades. "There would have been no doe tags that year," Wolfer says, "if it weren�t for that study." Those were the last antlerless rifle tags for the Rogue Unit. Now, the only does taken there are killed during archery and youth-only rifle hunts. Hunters with those tags can kill a buck or doe, but bucks make up the lion�s share of the kill. The problem, Wolfer says, is a combination of forces that together have conspired against blacktail deer: increased predation from cougars; housing development ruining low-elevation winter range around the Rogue Valley; regular suppression of low-elevation wildfires that help produce new, nutrient-rich forage; and a lack of clear-cutting in high-elevation forestlands that would create high-quality summer forage. These factors, Wolfer says, have chipped away at the deer populations to the point they now range anywhere from 12,500 to 14,000 adults. "And I don�t foresee a significant rebound, I guess, until some of these factors change," Wolfer says. "But that�s not likely." So the scenes of hunters sheepishly tucking their doe tags deep into their wallets are likely stuff of the past. "But come to think of it," McMullen says, "I wonder how many of those guys kept that tag in their wallet, shot a doe and never told anyone." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.