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Harvest Trends
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Harvest trends are provided and summarized by Deer Management Unit (DMU). Harvest within each DMU is tracked by the type of harvest (antlered vs antlerless), land type (public vs private), and by weapon type.
For additional Information….
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All harvest statistics are from registration data. Since 1953, the Department of Natural Resources has required that Wisconsin hunters register all deer harvested. Electronic registration of harvested deer began in 2015 and continues today. The registration process prompts hunters to answer a series of questions such as the deer management unit in which the deer was harvested, the age (adult or fawn), sex (buck or doe) of the deer and weapon type used to harvest the animal. This information is summarized to provide local Citizen Deer Advisory Councils harvest data and trends to make season structure and tag availability decisions for each DMU.
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Collection and analysis methods
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Harvest data is collected through mandatory electronic registration. Successful hunters are required to register all harvest and provide data on weapon type and land type. This data is summarized by DMU to provide trends over time.
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Harvest trends can be used as a course indicator of population growth as harvest is a subset of the total population. Buck harvest trends can often reflect overall population trends with increasing buck harvest indicating a growing population and decreasing buck harvest indicating a declining population, though this relationship has weakened over time. Changes in hunter effort, number of hunters, and hunter selectivity in their harvest choices change over time complicating using harvest trends as a direct measure of population trends. Antlerless harvest is less reliable as a population indicator as season structure and tag availability can vary from year to year and impact overall harvest numbers.
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Limitations and precautions
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Comparisons of harvest from year-to-year has limitations as external factors, such as timing of opening day for the 9-day Gun season, significant weather events during shorter duration seasons, and tag availability, can cause significant year to year change that may not be indicative of population changes. Looking at longer term trends helps account for year-to-year variability and can provide better perspectives on harvest over time.
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Changes in DMU boundaries impact the ability to maintain historical harvest data that can be used as a comparison of harvest trends over time. Building new datasets for new DMU boundaries will take time to provide relevant data and harvest trends.
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Additional background materials related to this metric
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The white-tailed deer harvest report is available for viewing on the Wisconsin DNR website dnr.wi.gov keyword “wildlife reports”.
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