As a boy, Keith Jolliff grew up in the rural Arlington, Ohio, area when whitetail deer were a rarity. On his way to and from school, spotting a deer would have certainly caused some excited conversations among a lot of those farm kids. That was a few more than just a couple of years ago. Keith has since retired from Cooper Tire and now lives in Findlay with his backyard butting up against the Blanchard River.
Always an avid outdoorsman, he likes keeping an eye on everything wild. Enjoying hunting trips in the deeper Midwest or supporting local Pheasants Forever activities, that farm boy’s curiosity and eagerness to learn is still present.
One day, Keith gave me a call to report something he said he’d never witnessed before: a doe with four fawns in tow.
“Is that normal or even possible?” he asked.
I have to confess in the 36 years I spent working with the Department of Natural Resources, I’d never seen a doe with quadruplets.
Survey
Every 10 years or so, the Ohio Division of Wildlife does a survey to examine the overall health of the state’s deer herd. This has included a fetus study of road-killed doe deer during late winter through the spring months, involving recording the number of unborn fawns and taking critical measurements that indicated the stage of development and health.
There were also collected surveys and observation reports of doe deer with their fawns and taking measurements of antler diameters of hunter-harvested deer and other in-season data.
The last 30 years of research have provided solid evidence about the deer population’s vigor. Antler and body size have long indicated that Ohio whitetails tend to be on the larger size. The abundance of natural forage and waste grain crops left during harvest ensures that plenty of food is available, especially in the agricultural northwest. Those abundant food sources result in a fawning rate that has also been among the highest in the Midwest.
First-year does are most likely to have a single fawn while 2-year-old deer will very often have twins. Approximately 8% of does will have triplets while only 0.50% will have four young ones. What Keith Jolliff spotted behind his home was very rare.
If you’re wondering if one or more of the fawns could have been adopted, it’s not likely. In fact, adoption among does and fawns is actually much rarer than the deer birthing quadruplets.
Herd deterioration
Though it’s inarguable that Ohio’s deer numbers have grown substantially across the state, that doesn’t indicate the direction of the herd’s overall well-being. According to recent research, there are certainly signs of the herd’s overall deterioration.
There are several indicators that signal that probability, and they can be found in the Division of Wildlife’s Quality vs Quantity report: ohiodnr.gov/static/documents/wildlife/hunting-trapping/OhioDeerHerdUpdate_Web.pdf.
“While pregnancy rates are the most direct measure of herd health and productivity, they are also costly and time-consuming to estimate. The number of fawns harvested per adult doe is a product of reproductive performance as well as fawn survival … If fewer fawns are born as a result of declining herd health, fewer fawns will be harvested, all-else being equal,” the report tells us. “From the early 1980s through 2011, the number of fawns harvested per adult doe has steadily declined. It is interesting to note that it has remained stable or has slightly increased since 2011.”
The report then turns to examining yearlings’ antler trends.
“Because body growth and maintenance take precedence over antler development, nutrients must first be allocated to meet the demands of increasing body size before they can be used for developing antlers. Numerous studies have shown that antler size, particularly among bucks growing their first set of antlers, is heavily influenced by habitat quality — as habitat quality declines, so too does yearling antler size.”
“With the exception of the western (Ohio) farmland region, yearling antler beam diameter has steadily declined statewide since the early 1970s. Given the growth of our deer population over the period of these declines, it is very likely that — similar to reproductive performance — antler development has also suffered due to declining habitat quality. However, in Hancock and Williams counties, and presumably in most of the farmland region, where deer feed on a much higher nutritional plane, it appears that deer populations have not grown large enough to affect yearling antler beam diameters,” the report explains.
Older bucks are another concern. Even as they age, they are not showing the positive antler growth expected of a healthy herd.
“It is well established that as a buck ages, its antlers get larger each year until approximately 5½ to 6½ years of age. If our herd was getting younger rather than older … average antler size would naturally be getting smaller, all else being equal. However, our herd was actually getting older, not younger. More bucks are reaching the older age classes than ever before, and if antler size was keeping pace, we would expect an increase in average antler size and, in turn, an increase in the number of BBBC (Buckeye Big Bucks Club) entries rather than a decrease.”
Bias
Finally, there is the issue of hunter bias. Is this now playing a part in how bucks are being hunted and reported? There are indications that hunters who have registered a harvested trophy buck with BBBC may not enter a qualifying harvested buck if it is smaller than their larger entry already on record. The issue of hunter selectivity appears to be much more in play than ever before.
With the advent of game cameras — both static and real-time relay — many hunters have found themselves in the position of hunting a particular buck and ignoring other opportunities. Toss in amateur wildlife management efforts that follow quality deer management techniques designed to grow big deer, and the results should be larger BBBC entries.
“However, if either or both of these factors were contributing to the decline in BBBC entries, only the “cream of the crop” would be entered into the Club, and, as a result, the average score of those going into the Club should increase over time, all else being equal. However, this has not happened, as the average score for typical and non-typical entries has remained stable since 1990,” the report found.
Today, most people traveling our rural areas and urban park settings are seeing more deer. As the state’s herd has increased, they have naturally dispersed — leapfrogging into new areas. Many of these areas have limited or no hunting access, with many county and municipal parks forbidding hunting even when such activities would be wise for the protection of the biotic/fauna community. The reasoning runs from concerns about safety to the dreaded public reaction. The results are often over-browsing of native and ornamental plants and trees on the park and neighboring properties, increases in car-deer crashes, and other deer/human conflicts.
As the state’s deer herd has grown, the Division of Wildlife has expanded hunting methods and opportunities for hunters along with more liberal limits that have been put into place to help increase the harvest. Deer damage permits are also available for landowners demonstrating substantial crop damage. Even with these measures in place, the state’s deer population remains reliant upon the hunter as the most reliable way to control Ohio’s deer population. This is where the difficulty arises. Many hunters are looking to take a mature buck while showing much lower interest in killing a doe or yearling deer. This selective culling — the failure to remove antlerless deer — can result in an increase in the deer population.
It seems that most hunters are satisfied with harvesting just one or two deer per license year, with their primary focus remaining on large bucks.
To better control deer numbers, it would be wise for more hunters to consider either putting more deer in their own freezer or donating to a food bank (fhfh.org). This realignment of how Ohio sportsmen view deer hunting and harvests is taking time, but many are adjusting to the idea of taking more antlerless deer.
Whitetails elicit many different emotions and responses. They’re seen as cute and cuddly, as a hunter’s trophy, an orchardist’s nuisance, photogenic, an unintended insert in a Honda’s grill and as a welcome addition to a Weber grill. The truth is, they are all of these things. Managing the whitetail herd health remains an exceptionally important job of the Division of Wildlife’s management team.
“When some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered yes — remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education — make them hunters.”
— Henry David Thoreau
