2010 Hunting Season Forecasts and DMP targets now available

[burmjohn]

This is from the DEC Mailing list:

We recently updated several webpages to help big game hunters prepare for the upcoming hunting seasons.

1.  Our 2010 Deer Hunting Season Forecasts are now available at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/37304.html

These forecasts provide a brief overview of the deer population and management trends within each Wildlife Management Unit (WMU).  New this year, we added charts showing recent deer harvest history and trends of Bowhunter Sighting Log data for each WMU.

2.  The 2010 Deer Management Permit (DMP) targets and hunters' odds of being selected for DMPs in each WMU are available at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/30409.html

The target DMP allocation for 2010 varies by unit depending on the management objective, but overall we intend to issue about 10% fewer DMPs than in 2009. In addition to the several Northern Zone units where DMPs are not authorized, WMUs 3A, 4L, 4U, 4Z and 5T will be closed for DMPs in 2010.  WMUs with increased DMP availability are located through the Mohawk Valley, portions of the Lake Ontario plains and central NY, and a couple other units scattered throughout the state.  Units with the greatest reductions in DMP availability are generally located across the southern tier.  In many portions of the southern tier, after the deer population declines of 2003-04, we reduced antlerless harvests for a couple years and saw incremental deer population growth through 2006-07.  We then began modestly ramping up antlerless harvest to keep deer populations from growing too fast and to avoid overshooting objective levels.  Based on the 2008 and 2009 harvests, it appears that deer populations in many southern zone units began to level off prematurely, and easing up on antlerless harvest in these units is again necessary for 2010.

3.  All 2010 hunting seasons can be found at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/65231.html

Included on this hunting seasons page is a new quick reference sheet of seasons and bag limits (pdf link at the top of the page) that you can print and carry with you.

Jeremy Hurst

Big Game Biologist

[drwost]

When are the permits as well as license available?

[WTAddict]

August 16th is when new lic can be had...............

[sits in trees]

man i luv living and hunting in 3M....

[Doc]

Well, as usual, I'm confused. When I look at WMU 8N the odds of being selected for an antlerless permit as well as a second permit is supposed to be HIGH then out comes the latest issue of New York Outdoor News which shows that the number of permits to be given out in 8N this year is less than 1/2 of what was given out last year. So they can apparently cut the number of permits in half and still have a high chance of being selected in 8N. I suppose that's possible, but it sure does sound peculiar to me. What in the heck did they ever expect to do with all those permits last year?

They're looking at a 10% overall statewide cut this year, so you may want to take a closer look at your WMU just to see if there are any surprises. Some of them are cut a whole lot more than just 10%.

Doc

[fasteddie]

They may hold back on the permits and then give them out with the extras at the later date . The DEC does make things confusing don't they !

[Doc]

I think they must hold some permits back just in case some late applicants show up with preference points or landowner applications. I never did figure out how they hold a pure drawing when there are all kinds of different dates that people are applying. It's not like everybody throws their names into a hat and then on a given date somebody pulls names out. The drawing is always going on while new names are being added. You have to have some extras laying around with that kind of lottery.

However, when one year you have a WMU with 23,600 potential permits available and you rate the odds as "high" for being selected, and then the next year you slash half of them to come up with 11,300 available, you would think that the odds would be something different than they were the year before.  :-\

Doc

[WNYBuckHunter]

They probably do hold permits back, thats why they have the second chance date when you can go back and get the left over DMPs or people that got their license late can get some. Id be willing to bet that in areas such as 8H, 8n, etc they end up with leftover permits even after the second chance drawing. I wonder if the DEC ever released that info.

[fasteddie]

I have been lucky so far so I don't want to say too much and jinx myself !