EXPERTS BLAME WEATHER FOR LOW DEER KILL

Although the number of deer killed this weekend in Southeast Missouri is down from last year, local wildlife experts said they doubted there are fewer deer in the area.

Saturday marked the start of the nine-day firearm deer season in Missouri. Hunters in Cape Girardeau County tagged a total of 408 deer over the weekend, down from 477 killed in the first weekend of the season last year.

"Saturday was pretty slow," saidGene Myers, a Cape Girardeau County conservation agent. "(Sunday) was probably equal with last year, which was a record year."

Myers said deer killed in the 13-county Southeast Missouri region totalled 3,883, down 485 from last year.

But he said the weather likely has more to do with the decline in killings than an actual decline in the deer population.

"Hunting pressure was the difference," he said. "There's not any decrease in the deer population, but in this warm weather, the deer don't seem to move as much.

"Also, some of the other counties to the west were up a little, so maybe some of the local hunters are hunting in other areas."

Dick Stiehl, a professor of biology at Southeast Missouri State University, took some of his wildlife management classes to the Southeast Regional Service Center of the Missouri Department of Conservation to help register deer. The center is situated in Cape County North Park in Cape Girardeau.

Stiehl said the weather likely will have a significant effect on the number of deer killed this season.

"Last year was a really super year," he said. It was super, blue-bird weather, and the hunters were out in force. This season it's really low."

Stiehl said the rainy, foggy weather Saturday and Sunday likely kept some hunters home, and colder weather earlier this fall has affected the movement of deer in the county.

"Two weekends ago when it got really cold, the deer started putting on winter coats," he said. "Now it's been really warm, and just like you wouldn't run around with your winter coat on when it's warm, the deer don't either. The deer aren't moving."

Stiehl also said hunters in Southeast Missouri traditionally hunt in "tree stands" and wait for deer to walk by. Because deer this year tend to remain bedded, the number of kills is down.

"If you're sitting still and the deer's sitting still, it's really going to affect how much interaction there is between the hunters and the deer," Stiehl said.

Myers and Stiehl agreed that the deer population in the area, if anything, has increased this year, despite the declining number of kills.

"We've been kind of in a rut the last eight or nine years in that we've consecutively been setting records," Myers said. "I think it's bound to have a year when the numbers level off, and, who knows, it might pick up and be another record statewide by the end of the week."

Stiehl said Missouri's deer management program assures a healthy and plentiful deer population by keeping herds within the limits the local environment imposes.

"That's what a wildlife biologist does," he said. "He looks at land and sees how the land is responding to the pressures wildlife puts on it.

"We want to make hunters happy people and we're working with the land to make the land happy. But the pressures humans put on wildlife in terms of hunting are nothing compared to other types of pressures they put on."

Deer were checked this weekend at the conservation department and at Jackson Bait and Tackle on Main Street in Jackson. The store also is sponsoring a contest for the "biggest buck" brought in.

Teresa Scheffel, an employee of the store, said hunters already have tagged several impressive deer.

"There have been some very nice deer," Scheffel said. "A lot of the hunters have said they've seen one or two, and a lot of them have seen three or four.

"Although the actual count wasn't as high, overall I think it's pretty good out there."