Doing Away With Quality?
December white-tailed deer hunts are highly sought after because hunter densities are low and whitetails are more active during the breeding season. This combination yields the lucky tag holder an improved chance to selectively harvest older age-class animals. Why would the department change these seasons?

December white-tailed deer hunts were introduced during the 1980s when all deer were more abundant than they are now. We also had more tags than applicants. With the introduction of the late hunts, hunters could draw two tags and harvest two deer annually, if the second tag was a permit leftover from the draw. These late whitetail permits were regularly undersubscribed and available until their popularity developed. Even today, these December hunts enjoy high success with about half the hunters harvesting a buck. In comparison, only about one-fourth of hunters in earlier hunts harvest deer. So 50 hunters in December harvest the same number of deer as 100 hunters do in October or November. By adjusting permits into earlier time frames, we can afford more hunters with a chance to go hunting.

Why is this important? In the 2007 fall draw, 72,651 people applied for a deer tag and only 42,585 people received one. So 30,066 (41 percent) of people who wanted to hunt deer had to stay home and find something else to do with their families. To accommodate more hunters, permits were shifted from December hunts into early hunts. The difference in hunt success allowed us to let more people go hunting in the early seasons than would have been able to otherwise. Although a few hunts offer 100 percent chance of being drawn if you select these as your first choice on your application, there’s no getting around the fact that tens of thousands of Arizona deer hunters have to sit home each year.

Is the department going to manage for quantity and abandon quality deer hunts? No. We retained units in each region that are managed as alternative white-tailed or mule deer units. These populations are managed for an older age structure, higher hunt success and, in white-tailed deer units, enough December tags so that about 30 percent of the harvest in those units will be from that time frame. In those units, the number of December white-tailed deer tags has increased.

It’s not a quality vs. quantity deer management issue. It is an issue of providing a range of experiences Arizona hunters want. Let’s look at it this way; the department has many customers with many different demands. In the simplest terms, some customers are interested in fishing and some want to observe rare birds. But on closer scrutiny, some anglers prefer coldwater fishing, or perhaps a specific type of trout with specific tackle. Although we often lump all hunters in one user group, it is important to recognize they, too, have a variety of wants.

We can provide seasons for those hunters who just wish to go afield, while providing more conservative hunts in other areas for those who want to pursue a world-class animal. We can’t meet every hunter’s expectation in every unit, but we can provide enough diversity so that a hunter can select the hunt that meets his or her specific desire.