Soon the Dept. will release it's pre-hunt population estimate. This is the forecast for LAST YEAR that I copied from the DNR web
"Even after a pretty tough winter in parts of the state and a harvest of more than 520,000 deer in the 2007-08 seasons, the deer herd is still a good deal larger than established population goals in much of Wisconsin. Wildlife biologists estimate that the herd numbers between 1.5 and 1.7 million animals going into the fall 2007-08 seasons."
When the season was over and we learned the total kill was just over 450,000, the Dept. stated that the actual pre-hunt herd was 1.52 Million and that they were within the 1.5 to 1.7 range they had predicted. The Dept. also released the over winter (post hunt 08) population estimate of 1,005,006 deer. I looked at the Dept's prehunt, post hunt and harvest data for the last 30 years to get a handle on the expansion rate of the herd for each of the years. Using that data I was able to get the expansion rate (herd growth) for each year. The 30 year average was 1.51. The 20 year average was 1.526 and the 10 year average is 1.528. The extreme spikes during those 30 years was an expansion rate of 1.84 and 1.25 with the 1.25 coming last year.
Since the Dept states that the over winter population was 1,005,006, I simply multiplied that number by the average expansion rate of 1.52 to get a pre hunt prediction of 1.53 million going into this fall. If I use last years expansion rate of 1.25, I get a pre-hunt prediction of 1.26 million. If I use the extreme of 1.84, I get a pre-hunt prediction of 1.85 million
So what will the Dept. give us as a 2009 pre-hunt prediction? Will it be:
1.26 million
1.53 million or
1.84 million
My guess is that the Dept. will soon make a public herd prediction for this years herd at 1.4 to 1.5 million deer. I wonder how the hunting public receives this number? Will hunters say: "I didn't see many (if any) deer when the Dept said there were 1.5 to 1.7 million deer and now their telling me this year there will be even less. Why bother buying a license?"
