Effects of Antler Point Restrictions on Deer Harvest in New York

Managing game species can require balancing multiple social and conservation goals. For many game species, including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), harvest is the primary tool for management of population abundance. Hunter interest in harvesting older male deer has encouraged managers to find ways to protect younger deer and recruit them into older age classes. Antler point restrictions (APRs) that protect some yearling antlered deer from harvest can be implemented to increase the availability of older, larger-antlered deer for hunters. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) implemented mandatory APRs in 2 adjacent areas of the state, one beginning in 2005 and the other in 2012. We predicted that APRs would decrease the proportion of yearling antlered deer in the harvest. We also predicted that APRs might result in an increase in the harvest of antlerless deer and harvest success on Deer Management Permits (DMPs), which are permits issued by the DEC that allow harvest of antlerless deer and are used to manage deer population size. We collected harvest information during 2003–2016 from the 2 areas with APRs and from adjacent areas that did not have APRs. The proportion of yearlings in the harvest was initially 51% and 58% in the 2005 and 2012 APR areas, respectively, and declined to 13% and 19% respectively after 5 years. Antler point restrictions did not affect the harvest of antlerless deer or DMP success. Although APRs successfully reduced the proportion of yearlings in the antlered harvest, we also observed a smaller decline (from 62% to 45%) over the same time period in the proportion of yearlings in the harvest in areas adjacent to the 2005 APR.