D+DH In-Depth is our premium, comprehensive corner on America’s No. 1 game animal. In this graduate-level course, we’ll teach you about deer biology, behavior, and ultimately, how to become a better hunter. Want to be the first to get our premium content? Become a D+DH Insider for FREE! 

As my truck slowed to a stop across the street from the small-town cafe, my friend spoke up.

“Look at the ‘puppy dogs’ on that car,” he said, pointing his finger and scowling at a pair of orange-clad hunters across the street, strapping two buck fawns to the roof of their vehicle. “I hope they’re happy they’ve killed two of next year’s bucks.”

I shrugged my shoulders and walked into the cafe for breakfast without saying a word. It was late October, during an early antlerless firearms season, and as I sat down at the cafe’s counter, I was bombarded with the sounds of angry hunters trading complaints about the hunt’s effect on buck populations.

Along with gripes claiming the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was decimating the deer herd, the DNR was criticized by some self-proclaimed quality deer management participants for killing a disproportionate number of buck fawns, undermining quality deer management (QDM) principles and decreasing adult buck numbers down the road.

The situation wasn’t unusual. In fact, similar scenes play out across North America that have adopted specialized antlerless-only seasons or have issued more doe tags to combat rapidly expanding deer populations.

Dispelling Misconceptions

At a glance, it’s easy to understand how hunters reach such conclusions. Reason suggests increased hunting pressure on antlerless deer will increase buck fawn kills. Fewer buck fawns, of course, mean fewer bucks. And that means disappointed hunters.

However, deer biology, decades of detailed harvest records, and Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett trends simply do not support this reasoning.

Despite “eyewitness accounts” of trailers filled with dead buck fawns headed home from deer camps, harvest records from several leading whitetail states clearly show that concerns about antlerless seasons decimating buck populations are unfounded.

For example, during one Wisconsin early antlerless-only firearms season, hunters killed 66,417 deer. Of those, about 53% were adult does, 24% were doe fawns and 23% — about 15,275 — were buck fawns. This example was from a few years ago, and although that might seem like a lot, those kills were spread across 16.25 million acres of deer habitat. In other words, on average, only one buck fawn died per 1,064 acres — about 1.5 square miles — of deer range.

Admittedly, those buck fawn kills weren’t spread evenly throughout that range, nor does that figure reflect how much of a given area’s buck fawn population was eliminated by the hunt. However, it refutes the idea that antlerless-only hunts decimate buck populations.

And that figure was no fluke. In fact, in the 60 years the Wisconsin DNR has been aging and sexing antlerless deer kills, the percentage of buck fawns has averaged only 21.6% of the antlerless harvest.

Harvest Figures Remain Constant

Other states’ data reflect similar harvest structures. Historically, the percentage of buck fawns in the antlerless harvests in Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana averaged 19.7%, 26.7% and 24.8%, respectively.

New York data mirror those statistics. Since 1982, buck fawns averaged 23% of the Empire State’s antlerless harvest. What’s more, the buck fawn harvest averaged less than 21% of the antlerless harvest within the past five years — a period in which New York hunters achieved record antlerless harvests three out of five seasons. Even more telling, New York’s adult buck harvests during those seasons were the highest in state history, averaging 126,867 bucks.

These buck fawn kill rates aren’t unique to Northern states, either. Despite the fact Georgia — like most Southern states — kills far more antlerless deer than antlered bucks, buck fawns account for less than 20% of the state’s antlerless harvest.

And on Mississippi’s Deer Management Assistance Program lands, buck fawns averaged less than 6% of the antlerless harvest.

Missouri has experienced similar trends, where buck fawns historically have made up only about 24% of the antlerless harvest and just 13% of the overall harvest.

Missouri’s harvest information also dispels the common misconception that specialized antlerless seasons take a higher percentage of buck fawns because they occur when newly dispersed juvenile bucks are disoriented. However, Missouri’s special antlerless season harvest is just 19% buck fawns — compared to 24% killed during the state’s traditional gun season.

Collateral Damage?

Like Wisconsin, Missouri accomplishes a significant portion of its antlerless harvest during a four-day, late-season antlerless-only hunt. The hunt receives criticism similar to antlerless hunts in other states, and Missouri wildlife research biologist Lonnie Hansen offered a simple rebuttal to such concerns.

“You don’t want to kill buck fawns when you’re trying to kill does, but that’s an unfortunate consequence of controlling and managing deer herds,” he said.

Furthermore, retired Wisconsin deer biologist Keith McCaffery said hunters in areas experiencing heavy antlerless harvests should face facts. Regardless of how many buck fawns such hunts remove, hunters should expect to see fewer deer of all ages and sexes — that’s the point of increased antlerless quotas. They’re supposed to lower deer populations.

Buck-Fawn Biology

To understand buck-fawn harvest dynamics, you first need to understand natural buck fawn birth and mortality rates.

According to Wisconsin’s chief deer ecologist, does usually give birth to more buck fawns than doe fawns, and those buck fawns typically die — from various natural causes — at a higher rate than doe fawns. Therefore, “sparing” them accomplishes little.

When antlerless-season critics are faced with harvest figures showing buck fawn kills are constant and make up a relatively small percentage of the overall harvest, they commonly contest that such figures gloss over the fact that many of those bucks were killed in relatively small areas, resulting in “holes” in buck ranges. However, yearling buck dispersal behavior disproves this argument.

According to Deer & Deer Hunting’s Research Editor John Ozoga, domination by female relatives causes most bucks to disperse from their birth range by age 1. This prevents bucks from eventually breeding their mothers and sisters.

In scientific studies from Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan and Georgia, yearling bucks dispersed 3 miles to 100 miles, depending on habitat, deer populations and herd structures, Ozoga wrote. Regardless of the distance, such dispersal prevents “empty spots” of buck range.

 In studies conducted on deer movement in eastern Illinois and northern Missouri, 70% of bucks dispersed from their birth range by age 1.5. In eastern Illinois, dispersal averaged 24 miles. In Missouri, bucks dispersed shorter distances, averaging nine miles. However, as Ozoga found, some of the bucks in the Missouri studies dispersed more than 100 miles.

In any case, unless you own at least several thousand acres of prime deer habitat, a buck you see on your property as a fawn stands little chance of ranging on your property as an adult.

“Buck fawns are big dispersers,” Hansen said. “If you want to produce larger age classes on your property, buck fawns are the most expendable animals.”

Record Books Don’t Lie

It stands to reason if states with high antlerless harvests were actually killing excessive buck fawns, those states would yield proportionately fewer record-class bucks. However, B&C and P&Y record-book entries from the past 20 years refute this.

For example, despite years of relatively high antlerless harvests, 24 Wisconsin counties rank among the top 50 P&Y-producing counties nationwide. Six of those counties rank among the Top 10, and all of them — Buffalo, Dane, Waukesha, Columbia, Sauk, Trempealeau and Waupaca counties — have had intense antlerless-only hunting.

Conclusion

In a perfect world, hunters would kill at least 25% more does and doe fawns and would refrain from killing buck fawns. If that happened, more bucks would reach maturity, herds would have more balanced adult-doe-to-antlered-buck ratios and deer numbers would be better suited with the habitat’s ability to support them. However, as harvest records in several states have proven, that’s a tall — if not impossible — order.

Hunters almost always shoot too few deer, and their hesitation to shoot antlerless deer out of fear of killing buck fawns invariably decreases antlerless harvests. As a result, deer herds swell even larger, increasing disease risks, damaging deer range and hurting sex and age ratios.

Fortunately, the facts show the buck fawn kills that unavoidably accompany heavy antlerless harvests aren’t nearly as high as commonly thought, and do little or no harm to hunting prospects, QDM agendas and adult buck populations.

Considering these facts, the message seems clear: Deer herds don’t require pampering to produce adequate numbers of adult bucks.

Want to be the first to get our premium content? Become a D+DH Insider for FREE!