ASHEVILLE — Deer hunters in the mountains bagged a record high number of antlered bucks this past hunting season, following a 10-year trend of “exponential” growth.

According to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, hunters reported a total 161,854 white-tailed deer (antlered, button bucks and does) killed, or harvested, across the state during the 2017-2018 hunting season, an increase of 8 percent from the 2016-2017 season.

This matched the increase for District 9, which includes most of Western North Carolina from Buncombe County west to the Tennessee border.

But the harvest of antlered bucks in WNC was 60 percent higher than the 10-year average, said Jonathan Shaw, wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Commission, based in Raleigh.

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There were 4,371 antlered bucks – considered a coveted, trophy species – reported killed this past season, up 12.7 percent from the 2016-17 season, and up 93 percent from 2008 when 2,270 were harvested in District 9.

One reason for the sharp increase is that the numbers started low a decade ago, Shaw said, but they are still impressive.

Antlered buck numbers also hit a record high in District 8, which includes Yancey, Mitchell and Rutherford counties east to Catawba County. There were 8,007 harvested in 2017 last year, up from 7,158 in 2016 and 5,735 from 2008, a nearly 27 percent increase over the 10-year average.

“We started at a very low level and slowly built up a population over time. It’s reached a point where we started seeing some exponential growth in some places,” Shaw said.

Western North Carolina hunters bagged a record high
Western North Carolina hunters bagged a record high number of antlered bucks this past hunting season. (Photo: Courtesy N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission)

“In some places, purposefully or not, we have seen improved habitat on private land. Deer like open areas, edges of forests. Increase in these areas generally leads to increased deer productivity.”

Andrea Leslie, habitat conservation coordinator for the Wildlife Commission, said that many critters benefit from this type of habitat, known as early successional. And private and public landowners are working to create or maintain this landscape to benefit game and non-game species.

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“Early successional is forest that is zero-10 years old. It has grasses and herbaceous vegetation, with young, shrubby trees coming up, achieved through timbering and burning,” Leslie said.

“Deer will come in and browse, turkey will come in for the food source, but so will animals that need that structure for habitat. Some birds, like the rare golden winged warbler, needs to nest just a foot above the ground in shrubby habitat.”

The statewide increase in deer harvest was somewhat surprising given the outbreak of hemorrhagic disease early in the season, particularly in District 9, Shaw said.

“But it points to the overall emerging herd we have in WNC. The deer population herd seems to be doing well and absorbed some of the loss we had from hemorrhagic disease outbreak,” he said.

The number of deer harvested increased across the state
The number of deer harvested increased across the state by 8 percent during the 2017-18 hunting season over the previous year, continuing a long-term increase. (Photo: Courtesy of N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission)

The actual size of the state’s deer herd is difficult, if not impossible to measure, but is estimated at about 1 million, with much lower numbers in the mountains than in the Piedmont and the coast.

The statewide deer harvest in 2016-17 was 149,811 deer killed, which was down 7.8 percent from the 2015-2016 season, including a 1.2 percent drop in District 9.

“We expect annual variation based on food availability and weather events. If there is rough weather during opening days of hunting season it can impact the number of deer harvested,” Shaw said

Learn more

For more information on the 2017-18 North Carolina deer harvest, visit www.ncwildlife.org/deer.