Any-deer permits, realigning WMDs

    2006 marks the 21 season of the any-deer permit system and a reconfiguration of the Wildlife Management Districts (WMD).           The new 29 WMD changes mostly affect the downeast region by realigning districts to better reflect deer habitat similarities and improve deer management.         A total of 67,725 any-deer permits were allocated to 24 WMDs, including 1,218 bonus any-deer permits issued in WMDs 23 and  24 to achieve district specific doe harvest quotas.  
    Of the permits available, 9,922  were issued to qualifying landowners in an early, separate lottery.  
    Any-deer permits are WMD and hunter specific; they may be used during the regular firearms  (Oct. 30-Nov. 25) and muzzleloader (Nov. 28 -Dec. 10) seasons.  
    Bonus permits allow hunters to take an additional antlerless deer and can be used during any open season.  
    New in 2006 was the Superpack license that  allocated up to 2.5 percent of the any-deer permits in wildlife districts with 5,000 or more permits to Superpack license holders as “Bonus Deer” permits. This allowed Superpack license holders to take two deer, one of which must be antlerless.
 The expanded archery season targets locations in which deer populations are under-harvested primarily due to firearms discharge bans and residential sprawl.  The expanded archery season had no limit on antlerless deer (either-sex) and ran for 79  hunting days (Sept. 9 to Dec. 9). As before, deer of either sex could be hunted statewide during the Sept. 28 to Oct. 27 regular archery season.         Overall 29,918 deer were registered during 2006.  During the expanded and special archery seasons 1,713 and 781 deer were  taken respectively.  
    The Youth Day harvest of 1,216  also showed an increase over 2005 by 81 percent and was the highest Youth Day harvest since its inception and 47 higher higher than the previous record year (2003).  
    The regular firearms season’s overall harvest of 24,862 mirrored the 2005 season with a slight  increase in the buck and doe harvest.
    For the first time a special license allowed crossbow hunting during the regular firearms season with 15 hunters bagging a deer.  Muzzleloaders faired better in 06’ with an overall harvest of 1,307 for an increase of  31 percent over 2005.
   A harvest quota of 8,473 adult does was set in 2006 to meet deer management objectives in Maine’s 29 WMDs.  These quotas  included anticipated harvests resulting from the either-sex archery and youth-day seasons.        Any-Deer and Bonus permittees tagged 4,021 fawns, while  archers and youth day hunters tagged 985 young of the year.  Overall, 13,769 antlerless deer were registered by hunters and the statewide doe harvest totaled 8,799 or 3.8 percent above pre-set quotas.     
    The statewide harvest of antlered bucks (16,149) in 2006 was within 1% of our projected buck harvest with a little more than half  of our WMDs reporting a higher harvest than projected.        It was estimated that over 172,000 hunters took to the woods to hunt deer in 2006.  Overall 71 percent of the deer registered were by  residents.  Estimates of success vary, with resident (including landowner) any-deer permit holders having a 26.8 percent success rate overall versus 22 percent for non-resident hunters.  
 For 2007 deer population management will continue to focus on increasing herd productivity in the northern and downeast regions.  And with a relatively  moderate 06’-07’ winter doe harvests will likely continue at similar levels in order to stabilize deer populations and maintain our short-term population objectives within most central and southern WMDs.