Game and Parks to give out "bonus tags"

Basically, the Game and Parks folks decided that Sen. Lautenbaugh's 4 deer on one tag bill may have had merit. They just reduced the numbers a wee bit.

From my old colleague Joe Duggan, one of the best damn writers in the state:

Game and Parks approves plan to kill more whitetails

BY JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Mar 14, 2008 - 12:18:31 pm CDT

Buy one, hunt one, then hunt another for free.

That’s one of the strategies the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will use to increase the number of deer killed by hunters this fall and winter.

Wildlife biologists, farmers and traffic safety advocates agree the deer population is too high in Nebraska, particularly in the east. The most direct way to reduce numbers involves killing more female deer.

So buyers of 87,000 regularly priced permits this year will get a free tag that allows them to kill an antlerless deer, meaning a doe or a male fawn.

The agency has used so-called “bonus tags” before, but under regulations adopted Friday by the Board of Commissioners, the tags were increased from 22,000 last year.

Kit Hams, the commission’s big game program manager, said biologists expect between 10 percent and 15 percent of hunters to use the bonus tags.

“If we get 10,000 additional antlerless whitetail deer, that would be a significant number,” he said.

Last year, of the 57,000 whitetail deer killed by hunters, about 22,500 of them were antlerless.

Most hunters prefer to kill bucks. Last year, the buck harvest stood at just over 43,000.

While the agency wants to decrease whitetail numbers, it wants to gradually increase the numbers of mule deer. Mule deer are more common in central and western Nebraska.

The rapid growth of Nebraska’s deer herd is an example of too much of a good thing. At the turn of the 20th century, deer had nearly been wiped out in the state because of unregulated hunting.

Their population grew gradually through the decades until the pace picked up significantly in the 1990s. Now a rough estimate puts the herd as high as 350,000 animals.

The success of deer has also prompted a growth in deer hunting. Last year, the agency sold just over 129,000 permits, a record. The 68,489 deer killed also was a record.

“The challenge for the 2008 season will be to maintain the excellent hunting we certainly have while bringing down the numbers of whitetails,” Hams said.

While the changes seem destined to reduce the population, they didn’t go far enough for Robert Schoen of Beatrice.

The 77-year-old farmer lost his oldest son, Russell, to a motorcycle-deer accident near Cortland in 1996. He also said deer are causing huge losses to agricultural producers.

Schoen argued the agency should require hunters to kill an antlerless deer before allowing them to hunt a buck.

“I suppose one of these commissioners is going to have to lose a family member before they do anything,” he said after the meeting.

Also testifying at Friday’s hearing was Robert Priel of Hickman, who also said he has a son who was involved in a traffic accident with a deer. Priel said he thinks the agency must aggressively recruit new hunters and teach the public about the role they play in keeping wildlife populations under control.

Commissioner Mark Pinkerton pointed out the agency staff just completed a year of work to develop a 20-year plan for the recruitment and retention of hunters and anglers in the state.