By Terry Knight
The Zone B, C, D and even a few of X deer season opens on Saturday and hunters aren”t expecting a lot (Northern Lake County is in the B zones). The number of deer hunters as well as the number of deer have declined dramatically in recent years.
In fact, last year approximately 210,000 deer tags were sold statewide by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG). When you considered that many hunters bought two tags, which is legal, that means there were only about 150,000 deer hunters in the state. Compare that with back in the 1960s when the DFG annually would sell more than 600,000 tags a season. The annual success rate for deer hunters in California averages about nine percent and that includes hunters who belong to private clubs where the hunting is generally far superior to that on public land. For example last year in the B zones the reported buck take for all the zones was a paltry 3,571 bucks for a success rate of 9.4 percent
There is no question that the deer herd in Northern California is in deep trouble. The big question is why? Lake County is a good example. At one time, hunters annually took more than 2,000 bucks per season. Last year that count was less than 300. The same holds true for neighboring Mendocino County. It”s not because the hunters are less skilled, there are just fewer deer.
Most of the wildlife biologists say the reason for the decline of the deer herd is a loss of habitat and predators. Control burning is now a thing of the past and there is little feed for the deer. Predators like coyotes and mountain lions are also taking a toll on the deer herd.
It”s not just in Lake County that the deer herd is in trouble. Across California the story is pretty much the same. The state”s deer herd has shrunk from approximately a million animals 20 years ago to less than 500,000 deer this year.
Just about all the wildlife biologists agree that loss of habitat is the critical factor in the continued decline of the deer herd. A good example are the national forests. At one time logging created huge open areas which supplied brush and forbes, vital as food for deer. Today, logging on national forests is at an all time low. The result is that few new areas are being opened up for deer. What a lot of people don”t realize is that pristine forests support very little wildlife.
In Lake and Mendocino counties, thousands of acres of oak woodlands are being turned into vineyards. A good example is along Highway 101 between Cloverdale and Ukiah. What once was prime woodlands are now vineyards. In Lake County, all you have to do is drive Highway 29 to Lower Lake and you will see hillside after hillside being converted to vineyards. The deer that once inhabited these areas now have no place to go.
There is also the problem of a lack of control burning on public land. Air pollution caused by controlled burning and the liability if a control burn gets out of control has scared public agencies away from doing any burning. The result is that much of the public land is nothing more than old brush which is tinder dry and offers little or no food for wildlife.
Predators also play a major role in the decline of the deer herds. When a deer herd is healthy, predators have little impact. However, when the herd is at a low level, the predators can keep it from rebounding. At one time ranchers controlled coyote populations, but no longer. Another fact is that state”s mountain lion population is at an all time high and each adult lion will kill a deer every two weeks.
Poachers also take a big share of the deer. The DFG estimates that poachers kill about more than one-half the number of the deer that legal hunters take. That adds up to more than 10,000 deer per year.
When you add in all these factors it”s no wonder the state”s deer herd is in serious trouble.
