Visitors to the annual Virginia Deer Classic in Richmond, where they can tour headmounts of trophy bucks, among other displays, are in agreement about the improvement of deer quality in the state. KEN PERROTTE View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Are deer numbers increasing? Just ask your local taxidermist

Ken Perrotte's outdoors column

Date published: 1/18/2007

VIRGINIA'S GENEROUS deer season just finished two weeks ago and many hunters took bucks that they plan to have mounted for trophies. These deer will provide lifelong memories for the hunters and good money for the taxidermists.

The white-tailed deer is America's most popular big game animal. A recent national survey of American taxidermists by the National Shooting Sports Foundation had a majority reporting a growing number of customers and a trend toward larger white-tailed deer bucks.

Informal checks with taxidermists around Virginia also indicate hunters seem to be bringing in a better class of deer than typically seen 10 to 20 years ago.

This trend is visible at the Virginia Deer Classic, staged at the Outdoor Sportsman's Show every August in Richmond. Frequent visitors to the show regularly comment that Virginia's deer quality seems to be improving.

The quality potential was always there. Matt Knox, deer program manager for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, collects biological data from hundreds of hunt clubs and other cooperators in the state's Deer Management Assistance Program.

"I don't think, within any given age class of deer, that antlers are getting bigger. What we are seeing from our cooperators' data, though, is that hunters are taking deer that are getting older," Knox said. The number of yearling bucks taken as an overall percentage of harvest has been steadily decreasing, while the number of 2-year-old, 3-year-old and older deer have been increasing (see chart, right).

This is reflective of a quality deer management mind-set that is becoming increasingly popular among hunters and landowners. Many hunt clubs have strict rules about not taking immature bucks.

Knox thinks a combination of education and peer pressure over a decade has resulted in this trend, which he said he sees not only continuing, but also accelerating.

For example, Shenandoah County, after several years of debate and deer management education, adopted regulations that went into effect this year specifying antler point restrictions. The goal was to protect younger bucks.

"People are talking today about the number of bucks they pass up annually," Knox said. "Even the average hunter often passes up younger bucks. This was uncommon in Virginia 10 to 15 years ago."

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Date published: 1/18/2007