Deer/Vehicle numbers 2013 - just some info

[Terrific_tom]

Don't know if this is going to copy and paste, But here is a state breakdown of licensed drivers.

Rank States

Amount

# 1 California: 22,657,288
# 2 Texas: 13,498,071
# 3 Florida: 12,905,813
# 4 New York: 11,356,988
# 5 Pennsylvania: 8,369,575
# 6 Illinois: 8,054,232
# 7 Ohio: 7,656,362
# 8 Michigan: 7,065,438
# 9 North Carolina: 6,014,782
# 10 Georgia: 5,757,953
# 11 New Jersey: 5,728,975
# 12 Virginia: 5,045,857
# 13 Massachusetts: 4,645,705
# 14 Indiana: 4,536,205
# 15 Washington: 4,407,269
# 16 Tennessee: 4,204,166
# 17 Missouri: 3,965,610
# 18 Arizona: 3,819,425
# 19 Wisconsin: 3,765,644
# 20 Alabama: 3,598,034
# 21 Maryland: 3,552,187
# 22 Louisiana: 3,119,960
# 23 Minnesota: 3,035,553
# 24 Colorado: 2,975,337
# 25 South Carolina: 2,918,957
# 26 Kentucky: 2,799,635
# 27 Connecticut: 2,659,918
# 28 Oregon: 2,589,764
# 29 Oklahoma: 2,348,449
# 30 Arkansas: 1,998,127
# 31 Kansas: 1,987,251
# 32 Iowa: 1,977,909
# 33 Mississippi: 1,885,974
# 34 Utah: 1,548,456
# 35 Nevada: 1,487,899
# 36 Nebraska: 1,311,332
# 37 West Virginia: 1,272,135
# 38 New Mexico: 1,236,488
# 39 New Hampshire: 967,770
# 40 Maine: 932,455
# 41 Idaho: 921,283
# 42 Hawaii: 834,188
# 43 Rhode Island: 731,323
# 44 Montana: 704,509
# 45 Delaware: 585,136
# 46 South Dakota: 554,553
# 47 Vermont: 543,412
# 48 Alaska: 481,487
# 49 North Dakota: 459,791
# 50 Wyoming: 378,009
# 51 District of Columbia: 313,027
Total: 196,165,666

 

[biglakeba$$]

More welfare people that sit on their rears all day every day.....

 

[Terrific_tom]

This site has some interesting statistics. Minnesota drivers put on 4400 miles more per year than the the US average of 13,476 miles.

http://cars.lovetoknow.com/about-cars/how-many-miles-do-americans-drive-per-year

 

[Kevin C]

I just wrote several pages on the IL DVA data. Until last year, with a lot of pressure from IWA, IDNR never posted ANY updated data on DVA's. I had to file FOIA requests with the IL Dept of Transportation to get the numbers. I logged the DVA's in every county (102) in IL, as well as the actual number of miles driven to get a DVA rate for every county... compared to the DVA rate goal set in each county by IDNR... and graphed it all out in 103 individual graphs to show trends. It's a shame it takes a volunteer to do this since IDNR won't. After I did all of that... and showed IDNR what I had done... they finally decided to release the actual data... SIX YEARS after starting this program of managing the herd solely on DVA rates. Here's a couple of links:

This shows the DVA goals (old and new) as well as the history of the rate (DVA's per billion miles driven in each county (which is what I had to do manually).
http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/conservation/wildlife/Documents/DVARate.pdf

This is the "raw data"... or the number of actual collisions in each county.
http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/conservation/wildlife/Documents/CopyOfDVASummary2013.pdf

IDNR uses DVA's per billion miles (PBM) driven for their metric... not just raw numbers of DVA's. Cook County (Chicago) has the highest number of DVA's(400+), but many more miles driven... so the rate PBM (~24.0) is quite low. Conversely, we have counties that have very few DVA's (one, in particular with 65)... but also have very few miles driven, so their rate is much higher (2,400 DVA's PBM). Keep in mind... the DVA rate is simply a tool to track the change in DVA's over time. It's not necessarily a way to prove overpopulation... it's basically just the odds of hitting a deer in a given county based on the number of miles people drive in that county. So... our entire deer management program isn't based on ANY kind of science that says "This the number of deer that should be in a given county."

From a lot of literature I've read, IL is the only state in the country to base their entire management program on ONLY DVA's.

There are some mathematical errors in how Illinois based the DVA goals. The statewide rate peaked in 2003. They looked at the maximum rate and the minimum rate (from 1994-2007) and set the "optimum goal" halfway in between. That just happened to work out to a 14% reduction in the statewide DVA rate, to set as the goal. The big problem is... only 15 counties peaked in 2003. That means that 85% of the counties had peaks in OTHER years... so automatically, their reduction from their PEAK year would be much higher than 14%. Also... most counties have a "minimum" and "maximum" rate (from 1994-2007) that varied much more than what the statewide rate varied by. That means that the bigger gap between those minimums and maximums... made for a higher reduction rate than 14%. Overall, the original AVERAGE county reduction goal was more like 26% (from each county's PEAK)... just to get the statewide number down 14% from when the TOTAL peaked. The goals set forth by IDNR and the Joint Deer Task Force (JDFT) were misleading. Some county reduction goals were as much as 47% reduction from the peak DVA rate. Over half (52 counties) had an original reduction goal over over 25%. The deer hunters in IL were flat out lied to about how many deer they planned to kill. Nobody was EVER told that they would lose 1/4 of their deer... let alone upwards of HALF in some counties.

On the bright side, we can track these trends to prove how much the herd is down in every county. We have some trends that track very well with what hunters are observing in the field (30-50% reduction)... and we have some counties that are all over the graph from one year to the next. The majority of the counties took a nosedive with the first round of EHD in 2012 (coupled with our IDNR not backing off on the number of permits until 2 years later). That trend continued downward with another EHD outbreak in 2013. Harvest totals in 2013 and 2014 also took a dive. The deer just aren't there anymore, and IDNR still isn't doing anything to reverse the trend. Over 60% of the gun permits that they "cut" last year were permits (on a county by county basis) that had never been sold to begin with. And we continue to have unlimited doe harvest the entire archery season. And we still have our 7-day late-winter antlerless season in counties that have surpassed their DVA goal where rates are down as much as 46% (which IDNR tells us that it also means a 46% reduction in the deer population).

The bottom line in IL is this... IL hunters were "sold" this line of BS about a small 14% reduction, which was assumed to mean that every county would see that kind of reduction. Then the IDNR pulled a bait and switch (they didn't even publish the true goals for each county until last year)... and hit most counties with much more than a 14% reduction goal.

Sorry for the long post. If I can figure out how to convert some graphs to JPG I'll post a few here.

 

[Kevin C]

Here's a couple of graphs I had saved on this computer...

Lots of info on here, but I posted the original DVA goal, the revised DVA goal, what the goal would be if it were a 14% reduction from peak, and what it would be if it were a 14% reduction from a 4-year high average. I added the gold line to show trends in the harvest the last 9 years (IDNR won't give me data back farther than that on harvest). Then I added some key statistics at the bottom.

With Monroe County, you can see how DVA data doesn't always trend real well from year to year. This is proof that IDNR needs to be using other factors to manage herd in counties like this.



With Calhoun, you can see the red line (the IDNR goal) is well below any kind of 14% reduction goal. They weren't removed from the doe-only season until this year.

 

[biglakeba$$]

Wow Kevin. Great work.

I tried to do something similar but on a much less grand scale.
I had to give up due to difficulties trying to obtain data.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Incredible amount of info you have Kevin, thanks for sharing.

 

[bat man]

I will be honest. I crave this info and have difficulty reading and gleaning. We need to find more ways to dummy down our presented data.

We lose almost everybody somewhere in translation.

If you lose me you are losing 99.9% of the populace.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Is it me or is everyone thinking this info may show a great conspiracy against our deer herds in every state. Is this bigger than IL and MN, or am i talking out of my A$$?........and that never happens!;)

 

[bat man]

Is it me or is everyone thinking this info may show a great conspiracy against our deer herds in every state. Is this bigger than IL and MN, or am i talking out of my A$$?........and that never happens!;)

It is happening all over the midwest and eastern US. It is no coincidence. Label it conspiracy or whatever you like - the boogeyman is huge and nobody knows who he is.

 

[bat man]

Kevin - do you know of organized grassroots efforts in states besides MN and IL?

 

[Kevin C]

Kevin - do you know of organized grassroots efforts in states besides MN and IL?

I haven't heard of any organized efforts other than us... who are actually looking at data and presenting facts and plans to state biologists. Some Indiana guys started a FB page to share information. I read some of their stuff. Sounded like they hit a brick wall with their state agency because they weren't really an official group, just a group of guys mad about deer management.

I know what you mean about data overload. I've spent probably 200 hours gathering data and looking at this from a number of angles. I can write 100 pages on the topic, but we need to come up with a great one-page hard-hitting fact sheet. We were just talking about that this past week amongst the IWA board. I'm an accountant by trade, so I tend to look deeper into the numbers and the math, and try to figure out WHY things are happening.

In Illinois, we have 2 state deer biologists who are hell-bent on killing more and more deer. They are still quoted in media outlets that there is nothing wrong with the deer population, even though the data says otherwise. They admit they knew about the "math anomalies" (that all counties would be slated for a reduction much greater than 14%) and they don't care. A lot of states saw EHD hit in 2012 and backed off their harvest goals. Illinois kept their foot to the floor. I think every midwest state got caught up in the great "herd reduction goal" the past several years. Most states overshot their goals (at least with IL we can prove this with DVA rate data). Then EHD and harsh winters hit and it was like a double-harvest wrapped up in a couple of consecutive years. Jason Sumner, the MO deer biologist had some great quotes from a year ago. He admitted they went too far with reductions in some areas, and then got caught with EHD. Hunters went afield for a few years and didn't make adjustments immediately, which led to more hunter harvests than was needed. It all kept snowballing until numbers were down across large areas, and now state agencies need to help hunters get the numbers back up. Unfortunately, in IL, "herd increase" isn't in our biologists vocabulary... and that's no joke. They've never once admitted in a press release that they went too far... or that EHD had an impact... or that counties were BELOW their population goal and needed to increase the herd. And their actions certainly don't help raise numbers.

Hopefully with a new IDNR director (who deer hunts) we have a chance to turn things around.

 

[biglakeba$$]

Stunningly similar story here.

Thanks for joining this site and sharing your info.

 

[bat man]

Kevin - how is the hunter education initiative 'don't shoot the hens' going?

In trying to dummy down the message of why your hunting sucks, maybe-

'The deer are gone because you, the neighbors, or both killed too many does. Figure it out and start passing does so the herd can grow'

 

[wiscwhip]

As NoFo has suggested in many previous posts, what you wrote above is exactly what many(not enough in some areas) WI private landowners have done for many years. That is why the DNR is now threatening the hunters of WI with full seasons of doe only - zero buck harvest seasons. They know that many hunters in WI have figured out their game and know that if they ever want to increase the antlerless harvest in these areas, they must be ready to force hunters to harvest antlerless deer. This option will blow up in their faces with less license sales, unless they wait until the week before the opener to announce some type of emergency rule after most of the tags are already purchased. At that point most hunters would be so pi$$ed they would chose to stay home and there would be next to no deer harvested at all. I personally can't wait for them to try and pull this BS, I don't think it will ever go that far, but it sure would get interesting if it did.

 

[bat man]

Hunters have to take the power back if we want larger deer herds. Pretty simple how that occurs...its just a matter of convincing folks that shooting does isn't the good thing that we've all been told.

Passing does to let the herd grow is the ticket, but until guys in cold spots talk to the neighbor, will it ever happen?

Reality is until you get guys on smaller pieces to understand without a cooperative, no matter how small, they won't stop shooting because they 'know' the neighbors will.

The DNR smoke and mirrors got us here, and only speaking with the neighbors will pull us out.

 

[bat man]

Totally agree. People don't change their ways unless they recognize a problem (and a solution) exists.

The problem in MN is becoming widely recognized. How do we make the solution within reach of neanderthal type men?

 

[Kevin C]

Kevin - how is the hunter education initiative 'don't shoot the hens' going?

In trying to dummy down the message of why your hunting sucks, maybe-

'The deer are gone because you, the neighbors, or both killed too many does. Figure it out and start passing does so the herd can grow'

Honestly, whether it's our "Voluntary Restraint" campaign or not, I think hunters are shooting fewer does. IDNR won't release total harvest sex ratios until June, but there's a way to find out the archery harvest with their online query system. Heading into the final weekend, buck harvest this year is up 1% and doe harvest was down over 2,600 deer... a decrease of over 9% from last year's dismal numbers. Keep in mind... this is with a 3.5 month season and unlimited archery doe permits. That number will shrink a little bit with the doe kills from the last 2 days of the season, but it's still a good trend to be showing. No way we'll make up that whole amount in 2 days of the LWS. Our total harvest this year will be lower than last year, and I think it will be interesting to see the sex ratios... if IDNR is honest with the data. I think it will show that we had fewer permit sales, and that hunters have had enough... and are taking matters into their own hands on management... while IDNR keeps trying to sell more permits.

IWA will be in a booth at the IL Deer & Turkey Classic next month. We printed up several hundred pins that say "I passed a doe so the herd will grow." Kind of a knock on the old "I shot a doe so the herd won't grow" campaign of our IDNR from 1991.

 

[dipper]

You poor guys, you think these guys shooting all the deer don't notice there is less deer? They don't care! I said it years ago, hunters are bipolar.
Good luck, but you are in a loosing battle.

 

[dipper]

^^^Says the guy surrounded by hunters who won't shoot does

Ya bipolar, you can't reason with either side of the spectrum