I'm a new student at Cornell Vet and this was my first year bowhunting NY. I'm from MA and honestly a novice deer hunter. Still learning a ton and every outdoorsman I met around Ithaca were great people and helped a lot. Turned out to be a great season for me, even though I didn't kill a deer - I stuck a nice 10 point in the shoulder at 5yds after he came into the grunt tube - they got him two weeks later during shotgun season. I wanted to post this letter from the Cornell deer program. I'm sure its a very polarizing topic. I enjoy it from both a hunting and biological standpoint. Their main point is the deer population in their study range is as strong as ever. The reason hunters had fewer sightings was due to weather. I also just had a lecture from one of their deer biologist in my conservation medicine talk. It was very interesting, especially when he said one problem they ran into trying to curb the deer population by spaying the females was how it attracted the bucks. They significantly decreased the does, but had a two fold increase (over 200 sightings) of bucks in the Tompkins County experiment areas. Basically since the does couldn't be bred they kept coming back into heat and attracted even more deer. Now I hunted the plantations land and didn't see a single deer. But the program has licenses to bait trail cameras for the experiment and the numbers don't lie. (Unless you don't believe them for your own reasons) Thought some of you might enjoy reading the report. I save the letter as two separate pictures, couldn't figure out how to send it as a word doc. Will post them consecutively. Best, Nick
>>>>----Thanks---->
Open Letter to Cornell Deer Hunters from the Cornell Deer Management Committee
4 January 2016
Nearly a decade ago, Cornell created the Integrative Deer Research and Management Program (IDRM) with the goal to reduce deer related damage to agricultural and natural area interests, as well as threats to human health, Lyme disease and deer vehicle collisions by 75%. Under this program, we consolidated hunting on near campus Cornell properties, implemented deer sterilization on core campus, and conducted research to estimate deer damage, deer abundance and measure progress towards reaching these goals. As a primary management component of the program, we allowed access by recreational hunters to Cornell properties that were previously closed, or with severely restricted access, encouraged antlerless harvest through an Earn-a-Buck system, and enrolled age acreages in the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Deer Management Assistant Program (DMAP) to supplement hunter permits to take additional antlerless deer. In 2012, the NYSDEC established the Deer Management Focus Area (DMFA) in Tompkins County, allowing individuals to take two antlerless deer/day during the entire hunting season, and providing a special three-week deer season in January. Despite concerns over greatly reduced or even the elimination of deer in rural areas voiced by hunter groups in response to the DMFA, and despite all the opportunities and concerted efforts that the IDRM program has implemented to enable increased deer harvests and reduce impacts, our ongoing assessments indicated that the Cornell's fields, forests and outdoor classrooms continue to suffer and unacceptable levels of deer damage. After an initial five year review of the IDRM program, population and damage data showed that despite >90% sterilization of the female deer on the core campus, hundreds of deer shot in the surrounding areas, and hundreds of hunters in the woods each year, deer damage was not reduced. Facing additional funding and staffing constraints, Cornell subsequently established a university-wide Cornell Deer Management Committee (CDMC) t guide deer management on near-campus Cornell lands. The CDMC is now responsible for setting policies and approving operational procedures for the program, changing harvest restrictions, consolidating Plantations managed hunting program, and streamlining administrative, permitting, reservation, and reporting systems. The CDMC also worked to develop and implement the use of Deer Damage Permits (DDP's or nuisance deer permits issued by the NYSDEC) around the periphery of the main campus beginning three years ago. The DDP program is highly managed, and involves a small group of individuals recruited from the Cornell hunting program, who are trained to follow additional safety measures and protocols for using archery and crossbow equipment over bait in designated areas. Over the past three seasons, we have record a drop in the deer population surrounding campus from a peak of 110 individuals in 2013 to 47 in the spring of 2015. While this change is a major step into the right direction, it is still not meeting the reduction program goals. (Given the early success, using these trained volunteer bow shooters over bait with DDP's is now an approach being recommended to other municipalities.) Since the deer overpopulation issue is regional in scale, and focused deer reduction programs have not yet been undertaken by all neighboring municipalities, University lands still face considerable immigration pressure from the outlying areas. Additionally, for areas open to recreational hunting both near and distant to campus, we remain far from our goal for a 75% reduction in deer damage. Recreational Hunting afforded by permitting 1,000+ applications annually and collectively opening 6,000 acres to hunters at a significant financial and personnel cost t the University and Plantations has yielded inconsistent results. There are many of you who fully embrace the program goals and recognized the mutual benefits afforded by the privilege of hunting on University lands. However, we have made it clear that we are not a quality deer management or big buck operation, and that our primary goal is herd reduction to lower deer damage and other negative impacts. We know that some of you spend hundreds of hours in the woods, with some individuals logging over 100 hunting trips last season alone, yet no deer take was reported. We assume that these individuals are not poor hunters, but are patiently waiting for "the big one" to come by. These results are similar to other programs in New York and other states, where recreational hunting has failed to achieve major reductions in deer damage. The assumption that increased access by hunters and greater hunting opportunities will solve deer damage problems is not borne out by the facts. This situation is neither what our program was created for nor what our significant time and effort investment is meant for. we do not mind if you shoot big bucks, but w want you to shoot the does and fawns as well and plenty of them. Cornell is a world class research university, yet our students, faculty, and many surrounding landowners face a continuously eroding quality of the natural areas and of our ability to study and enjoy the biodiversity in the field and woods surrounding campus and beyond. Our research also shows that deer are the major ecosystem engineer responsible for this deterioration. This is not a situation that can continue without major consequences for the IDRM program and recreational hunting opportunities. Given the prevailing hunting culture, NYSDEC statutes, and urgent need to further reduce deer populations and lower associated deer damage, the CDMC is now recommending expanding use of Deer Damage Permits surrounding the periphery of main campus. This results in the loss of approx. 390 acres of areas previously open to recreational hunting. This change will be effective starting with the DMFA season in January 2016 and going forward and involve A1, A2, A3, A7, A8, A9 & A10. You will no longer be able to book locations in these areas using our reservation system. Depending on the outcome of this approach, we may consider expanding this approach to other University lands in the future. All we can do at this point is once again strongly encourage you to legally take many more deer off Cornell lands. As a reminder, individuals who do not take antlerless deer annually will lose their ability to sign into areas seven days in advance of a hunt date. We understand that not every trip can be successful, but we will continue to try and reward individuals who help us in achieving our management goals. We understand that some of you may face the loss of favorite hunting spots that you have been using for several years, and that this is typically no a popular path to take. But our IDRM program is data driven, and if we are unable to achieve the desired outcomes we need to either shut down or find novel ways to solve our deer problems and fulfill our stewardship responsibilities for all biodiversity that occurs on Cornell lands. Lastly, a note on the 2015 hunting season. Many of have experienced a significant drop in harvest rates and deer sightings. This did not just happen on Cornell lands but region or even statewide, far beyond DMFA. This does not indicate lack of deer in the woods (our trail cameras at baited monitoring stations show there are still plenty of deer) but is likely an El Nino and temperature phenomenon. Deer activity has shifted almost entirely to night activity (9 pm to 5 pm (sic.) even at baited locations. Deer activity and hunter activity just did not match.
* If you harvest an antlered deer you will be required to harvest an antlerless deer within two years to maintain eligibility in the program for future years.
Just a war of advice, concerning "The reason hunters had fewer sightings was due to weather".
They are just wrong, wrong, wrong. But... its a free country to some degree and folks may state things as fact and be incorrect, still. Myself included, lol!
