Interesting

[Steve D]

Volunteers Needed for "Gut Pile Ecology" Project

Are you a deer hunter or know someone who is? DEC is expanding our “Nonlead Ammunition for Eagle Conservation” project during the 2024-25 deer season. The biggest change for this season is that all licensed deer hunters are eligible anywhere in the state where hunting with a firearm is legal. Like last year, we are collecting data on scavenging rates and dynamics at gut piles of harvested deer including how long it takes for scavengers to find them, how long gut piles persist, and differences based on habitat and location.

If you are a deer hunter or know deer hunters who would be willing to volunteer to assess “gut pile ecology” please sign up to participate. 

We’re asking volunteers, during their normal deer hunting activities:

1. to place a trail camera at the gut pile after harvesting and field dressing a deer;
2. to record a small amount of data including location of the gut pile; and
3. whether they have a trail camera they’d be willing to use for this effort. **We have a limited amount of trail cameras that we could loan to volunteers.**

We are looking for volunteers throughout the entire state at any time during the 2024-25 deer hunting season. We do not want volunteers to change anything about their normal hunting activity or how they normally would leave a gut pile (this is important for our study to be valid). We are interested in what is happening at these gut piles after they are left on the landscape.

More detailed background and instructions will be provided to volunteers after they sign up.