| As exurbia becomes more dominant in our landscape, the number of deer populations in parklands surrounded by housing increases and creates new challenges in deer management. Traditional harvest regimes often are not possible in areas with heavy human use. Instead, many managers use controlled hunts to reduce deer populations. I studied the efficacy of a 2-day shotgun controlled hunt on a section of Fair Hill Natural Resource Management Area, Cecil County, Maryland. Starting in February 2004, we captured and tagged 158 deer, and radio-collared 62 does. Survival rate of adult does was 0.66 with harvest as the most prominent mortality cause (85.7%), followed by deer auto collisions (14.3%). I conducted spotlight surveys to determine deer density (48 deer/km2), adult sex ratio (5.3 does/buck, SE = 1.452), and fawn-doe ratio (0.88 fawns/doe, SE = 0.0537). I collected reproductive data from does harvested during the controlled hunts in 2005 and 2006. The average fecundity for adults, yearlings, and fawns were 1.76, 1.44, and 0.06 fetuses/doe, respectively. To examine the effect of the controlled hunt, I created a female-based population model, which included age-structured fecundity and survival rates. The model indicated a declining population (average lambda = 0.872) with the 2004 adult doe survival rate (0.56, SE = 0.074) and an increasing population (average lambda = 1.069) with the 2005 survival rate (0.74, SE = 0.068), but indicated the Fair Hill NRMA deer population was relatively stable (average lambda = 0.981) with the pooled survival rate from both years (0.66, SE = 0.069). I recommend ways to increase the efficiency of the controlled hunts to consistently increase doe mortality and decrease deer abundance. |
