DEC aims for hunters to target female deer to tackle overpopulation

White-tailed deer have become overpopulated in many parts of Long Island, according to state wildlife managers, occupying suburban landscapes at such high densities that they have damaged some woodlands, played host to ticks, and caused hazards to themselves and to humans when they wander onto roads.

"We've been struggling with deer management on Long Island," said Leslie Lupo, a wildlife biologist at the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Stony Brook.

Last week the agency announced changes in its hunting regulations, to increase the number of female deer killed, which it hopes will reduce the population in the long term.

When the new rules go into effect this hunting season, which runs from Oct. 1 to Jan. 31 in Suffolk, hunters can get a "tag," or permit that allows them to kill a buck, as in the past. But under the new "Earn-a-2nd-Buck" program, if they want a second buck, a hunter will have to show they've killed a doe "before they can receive that second antler tag," Lupo said.

Research shows that it’s the does, rather than the bucks, that have the most effect on population growth, according to Lupo, so the DEC’s strategy is focused on reducing the does' numbers.

The new rules, which were proposed in March after consultation with hunters and residents, will allow hunting in more areas, outside of Long Island, and eliminate quotas in some areas. Suffolk does not have quotas. Hunting is not allowed in Nassau County.

Last year, recreational hunters killed 3,765 deer in Suffolk County, of which 1,761 were adult males and 1,296 were adult does; 708 fawns of both sexes were killed. The five-year average from 2020 to 2024 was 3,171 total killed, 1,449 of which were adult male, 1,124 adult female and 299 fawns.

There's been no clear trend in deer killed in Suffolk over the past decade or so. Since 2012, numbers have ranged from about 2,600 to 3,500 each year. The number jumped to more than 4,500 in 2020, then fell again. 

Hunting groups, including the New York State Big Buck Club, New York State Conservation Council and Hunters Garden in Riverhead, did not respond to requests for comment.

Populations rebounded — and then some

White-tailed deer across the country nearly disappeared in the 19th century as forests were cleared for farming and European settlers hunted them in unsustainable numbers for food and skins. But settlers also wiped out the deer’s natural predators such as wolves, and once new hunting restrictions were established in the early 20th century, their numbers rebounded.

In some parts of Long Island, white-tailed deer are so abundant that they are now browsing the understory woodland plants faster than they can regrow — creating what foresters call "regeneration debt."

Over time, as the mature trees die and new ones don’t grow to take their place, "you’re left with something that looks nothing like what was there," Brian Underwood, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said in an interview.

The state’s deer management plan, released in 2021, found 25% of Long Island had moderate to severe regeneration debt.

Experiments on Long Island prove that forests can regrow normally if deer are kept out. At the Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island, several quarter-acre plots were fenced off in 2000, and then researchers measured plant diversity, number of trees and tree growth in and around the test plots over 10 years. "There was a significant difference inside the fence and on the outside," said Jeff Wagenhauser, conservation land steward for The Nature Conservancy in New York, which owns the preserve.

It's clearly not practical to fence off hundreds of acres of woodlands to protect them from hungry deer. The conservancy has allowed recreational hunters since it bought the 2,350-acre property in the 1980s; lately around 70 to 100 deer are killed each January season. Wagenhauser said the conservancy created new test areas in 2019 and has been measuring young trees every July. "We're seeing positive trends right now with sapling growth," he said.

Hunting, culling and fertility control

But some studies have shown recreational hunting isn’t an effective means of population control. One study at Cornell University concluded a recreational hunting program, which included an "earn a buck" incentive to shoot does, failed to reduce browsing or to reduce deer populations, as deer migrating from outside the study area offset any changes.

The authors found that when special permits were granted allowing volunteers to use bait and artificial lights to attract deer, more animals were killed and populations edged downward.

The number of New Yorkers holding licenses to hunt also fell more than 30% between 1985 and 2020, according to data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Anthony DeNicola is the founder and CEO of White Buffalo, a deer management company that has conducted sterilization and contraceptive campaigns on Staten Island and in East Hampton; and the company’s professional sharpshooters conduct annual hunts on Fire Island. He doesn’t believe the DEC's new rules will be effective in reducing deer populations.

"The DEC tries to do everything in their power to manage deer," he said. But the agency's new incentive plan is "100% meaningless."

"We don't have a shortage of tags" in New York, he added. "You have a shortage of tools."

A better tool, in his view, is a professional cull, which is more efficient and more humane. A trained sharpshooter will usually kill a deer quickly, he said, compared with hunters. Also, DeNicola said, as deer densities decrease, so does hunters' enthusiasm for hunting as it gets harder.

The DEC responded that the new hunting regulations "aren’t intended or expected to resolve" deer population concerns on their own. "In urban and suburban settings, regulated hunting generally needs to be augmented with intensive culls to remove sufficient numbers of deer to meet community objectives," DEC spokesperson Lori Severino said in an email. 

"But broadly across the landscape of NY," she added, the new incentives "are specifically intended to increase management efficiency and efficacy." 

Over the years, a number of nonlethal fertility control methods also have been tested, with varying degrees of success.

A long-term study on Fire Island starting in the 1990s, using contraception delivered by darts, found fawning rates among treated does fell by 79% over four years compared with pretreatment rates. Over 16 years, deer populations in some parts of the research areas decreased by half. The treatment required boosters as well as tagging to keep track of which does had been darted. The National Park Service decided it wasn't effective.

The state DEC's Deer Management Plan said fertility control programs have been effective only in fenced locations or islands, and not in typical suburbs or urban areas.