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Deer hunting season a fall tradition in OklahomaOklahoma Don't tell Walt Disney, but it is by no accident that deer hunting season occurs in the fall in Oklahoma. Bambi got it wrong. In the movie, the deer were courting in the spring; they actually do this in the fall, said Jim Shaw, a professor of natural resource ecology and management with Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. "When does come into estrous, the bucks only have one thing on their minds," he said. It is the urge to breed that leads to the poor choices made by a young buck, which ultimately leads to the harvest of that buck. The shorthand expression for these actions is "testosterone poisoning." "Bucks will take more risks, get in fights with rivals and generally do riskier things," Shaw said. "Simply put, it's easier to kill bucks in the fall." The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation will have a pretty good idea how the harvest will go after the first weekend of the season. Due to the mandatory check stations throughout the state, the ODWC keeps track of the total number of deer checked during the season. "The biggest harvest is always on the opening weekend of the deer gun season," Shaw said. "What messes us up a little from one year to the next is the weather on opening weekend. This time of year, we could get anything." This deer gun season opens Nov. 22. Hunters should keep an eye on the weather forecast and look for good hunting conditions. "Your ideal hunting weather is crisp, cold, dry and no wind; with those conditions, the bucks can get the scent of estrous does and they go berserk and don't show their normal caution because they have only one thing on their mind," Shaw said. This time of year is the peak of rut for the deer. At Oklahoma's latitude, fawns will be born mainly in May and have an opportunity to mature during the summer months. "The young of the year are more or less independent in the fall," Shaw said. "The impact of taking out some of those animals is going to be less than it would in the spring." Research and wildlife management over the years has provided the ODWC with the information to know about the breeding patterns of white-tailed deer in the state. Even before this information was available, most of the hunting was still done in the fall. Before the advent of freezers and refrigerators, hunting would commence in the late fall or winter so that hunters could hang their harvest and use Mother Nature to freeze it for storage. "The phenomenal growth in the state's deer population in recent decades is reflected in the harvest figures," Shaw said. In 1970, fewer than 7,000 deer were taken legally by hunters statewide. By 1990, harvest exceeded 44,000 and has averaged more than 100,000 in the years since 2000. "The key in stabilizing deer population is the harvest of does, a practice that only became legal in the 1970s," Shaw said. "By 1990, 24 percent of the deer taken by hunters were does; in more recent years, the doe harvest has been between 35 percent and 40 percent." For more information on deer hunting in Oklahoma, visit the ODWC at http://www.wildlifedepartment.com on the Internet. 11/24/08 Date: 11/18/08 Advertisement
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