By South Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources
Results of the 2016 Deer Hunter Survey indicate the statewide harvest of deer decreased about 11 percent last season, not surprising given the poor hunting conditions last fall.
An estimated 99,678 bucks and 72,637 does made up a total harvest of 172,315. However, the 2017 deer harvest is expected to increase due to carryovers from 2015 and 2016.
Increasing rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s, the deer population in South Carolina has generally been declining over the last dozen years and results from 2016 continued that trend. The reduction in harvest can likely be attributed to a number of factors including habitat change.
Although forest management activities stimulated significant growth in South Carolina’s deer population from the 1970s through the 1990s, considerable acreage is currently in even-aged stands that are greater than 15 years old.
According to forest inventory data, during the last 20 years the states’ timberlands in the 0 to 15-year age class dropped 34 percent while timberlands in the 16 to 30-year age class increased 104 percent. These older stands are not as productive and simply do not support deer densities at the same level as younger stands in which food and cover is more available in the understory.
Also, coyotes are a recent addition to the landscape and are another piece of the puzzle.
SCDNR has recently completed a major long-term study with researchers from the United States Forest Service Southern Research Station at the Savannah River Site investigating the affects coyotes are having on the survival of deer fawns. This research demonstrated that coyotes can be a significant predator of deer fawns, that predation by coyotes can be an additive source of mortality, and that efforts to increase fawn recruitment via coyote control provided only modest results and at high cost.
Obviously one cannot apply these results uniformly across the state because habitats, coyote densities, deer densities, etc. vary. However, coyotes are now well established in South Carolina so they should be expected to play a role in deer population dynamics at some level.
Top counties for harvest in 2016 included Calhoun, Hampton, and Orangeburg in the coastal plain and Anderson and Spartanburg in the Piedmont with each of these counties exhibiting harvest rates in excess of 12 deer per square mile, which should be considered extraordinary.
Although the harvest has declined in recent years, South Carolina still ranks near the top among Southeastern states in harvest per unit area.
Although the annual Deer Hunter Survey focuses on deer hunting activities, there are questions on the survey related to the harvest of wild hogs and coyotes in the State.
Results of this year’s survey indicate that approximately 28,513 coyotes were taken incidental to deer hunting, down 2 percent from 2015. On the other hand, approximately 25,252 wild hogs were killed statewide representing a 25 percent decrease from 2015 likely related to pig mortality as a result of major coastal flooding two years in a row.
Complete details of the 2016 Deer Harvest Report are available on the SCDNR website.
–By Charles Ruth, SCDNR Big Game Coordinator