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Arkansas Whitetail populations approaching record numbers!
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Arkansas Whitetail population approaching record numbers!
The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission is reporting that the Arkansas Whitetail population is on the rise and nearing record numbers.
In the late 30's and 40's, deer harvest numbers that were recorded show that less than a thousand deer were checked each year for the most part, but that has changed! As of this early date this year, the number of deer checked in Arkansas is nearly 30,000 combined sexes according to AGFC, and the season has just begun.
The first year of official checking of deer taken by hunters by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was 1938.
The next year, 1939, there were 540 deer checked as information spread around the state about this new requirement for hunters. In 1940, just 408 deer were checked, and in 1941, 433 deer were checked.
These totals seem tiny compared to recent years of Arkansas hunting.
Last season, the 2008 hunt that stretched into early 2009, 184,991 deer were tallied by Arkansas hunters, a total second only to the peak season of 1999 when 194,687 deer were logged across the state in records of all three hunting methods archery, muzzle-loader and modern gun.
Arkansas deer harvest: 70 years of onward and upward Deer hunting numbers rose steadily from the early years, especially after the AGFC was reorganized into its present form by Amendment 35 of the Arkansas Constitution which went into effect in 1945. From the 1,687 deer checked that year, the state total was 5,122 just five years later. Fifteen years later, in 1960, the deer harvest total was 15,000.
Deer harvest growth continued through the 1960s and see-sawed a bit in the 1970s as the first steps toward hunting of female deer, does, in some areas began. Some protests came forth after the 1978 season when 43,452 deer were checked. Doe hunting was reduced, and in 1979 the total for the state was 36,074.
It was 1987 when Arkansas’s deer take reached six figures, with 106,392 checked that year by hunters. The total dipped in 1990, again with tightened hunting rules. Then it returned to six figures in 1991. The peak of 1999 climaxed five years of impressive numbers on the deer hunting scene.
Some hunters protested that too many deer were falling to hunters. New strategies in deer management came forth, including quality deer objectives on both private land and some public land.
After a dip in 2003, when tighter deer hunting rules were coupled with unfavorable weather, the statewide deer totals have climbed again to approach the peak of a decade ago.
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