Maine deer herd living the good life near Bangor Making tracks on lynx a Noble task

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Editor’s note: Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional biologists compile weekly hunting reports. Full reports are on its Web site: state.me.us./ifw/hunt/weeklyreport

Central Maine

During November, one of my primary responsibilities is to collect biological data from deer that have been harvested during the regular firearms season. Biologists in central Maine accomplish this with a cooperative and voluntary effort from local meat processors. The processors save deer heads with information on a tag for me to check periodically throughout the season. The area that I have responsibility for sampling, for the most part, is the northern portion of Region B (Bangor).

In my travels I may see deer from any Wildlife Management District throughout the state, but the majority of deer I sample are taken in WMD 17.

WMD 17 is 1,430 square miles and composed of 37 townships in southern Penobscot, Somerset, and Piscataquis counties. It also includes a small, northern portion of Kennebec County. District 17 includes the central interior and western mountain foothills biophysical regions of the state.

The climatic region is the central interior and winter severity for deer is considered moderate with two severe winters occurring per decade. The predominant forest types are Northern Hardwoods, Spruce Fir and Aspen Birch. The major land uses on WMD 17 are private forest, agriculture, small town, and urban areas.

There are 53 residents per square mile who are well distributed among farms, small towns and a few small cities. Deer hunting pressure is considered high with about 155 hunter days per square miles a year. Deer numbers in District 17 are estimated at 20 to 30 per square mile and bucks harvested per 100 square miles are the highest in the state at 150.

DIF&W has the responsibility of managing deer populations within the state and more precisely within each WMD. A complex process that combines public input with collection and analysis of deer biological data and winter weather data accomplishes this.

The population goal for WMD 17, as recommended by the Big Game Public Working Group, is to balance the desire for hunting and viewing opportunity with the need to reduce negative impacts of deer from browsing/crop damage, collisions with motor vehicles, and potential risk of Lyme Disease. Therefore, the primary objective is to bring the post hunt deer population to 20 deer per square mile (or no higher than 60 percent of the maximum supportable population) by 2004 and then maintain the population at this level.

For DIF&W to achieve the population goal, herd reductions in central Maine WMDs will be necessary. This requires substantial allocations of any-deer permits coupled with landowner willingness to accommodate hunting and hunter willingness to kill antlerless deer.

Originally, DIF&W biologists recommended issuing 17,050 any-deer permits in District 17 for 2001, but after analysis of winter severity data permit numbers were reduced to 10,650 to compensate for winter losses.

I have collected biological data on about 300 deer for the first two weeks of the firearm season, which is down slightly from last year’s collection effort. Of those 300 sampled, 189 were harvested in WMD 17. There were 44 adult males (21/2 years or older), 66 male yearlings (1 year old) and 12 male fawns.

Of females checked, 55 were adults, 16 were yearlings and six were fawns. The majority of adult buck weights were between 150 and 200 pounds. The two largest bucks checked weighed 250 pounds dressed and sported 10- and 12-point racks. Yearling bucks averaged 120 pounds dressed and most had spike or 4-point racks.

I have checked six yearlings with six-point racks and one of these weighed in at 140 pounds. One of the measurements that we take on yearlings is antler beam diameter; this is a good indicator of the deer population in relation to habitat conditions. Antler beam diameters in WMD 17 indicate very good habitat conditions for deer in 2001. Most does I have sampled weigh 100-120 pounds and several have hit 130.

I really consider myself fortunate to sample deer in this part of the state because I tend to see a lot of high quality deer. It is sometimes difficult though when you’re checking 200-pounders with 12 points and you haven’t gotten yours yet. On the other hand, I still get to do some more deer hunting.

– Allen Starr, Wildlife Biologist

Moosehead Lake

I am an inveterate reader on many subjects. Long ago I got my hands on a mimeographed report from Colorado in an effort to determine whether lynx persisted in that state. They sent people out to look for tracks more than 31/2 inches wide in the snow. For some reason this figure stuck with me. This criterion is a very good starting point. (Here in Maine we have the moose, which can be of that size, but the track looks like huge deer, of course.)

Beyond the width, it is necessary to exclude those tracks with more than four toes on a foot. In this category are bears, fisher, beaver, otter, etc. Then you must realize that the fifth toe on these animals doesn’t always leave an impression. The lynx has four toes, sometimes but not always visible in the track, particularly in deep, powdery snow.

Dogs, wolves & the like can be excluded by their claw marks. The native wild cats have retractable claws, therefore, no claw marks. The dogs do not. Unfortunately a few breeds of dogs leave no claw marks. These can possibly be excluded by gait (see below).

This key now gets us down to lynx and lion. As far as I’m concerned the lion doesn’t exist at large here, unless just released. Anyway the lion’s track would be much like that of a bobcat, but larger. There would be two indentations in the back of the heel pad. Since the weight-load-on-track of the lion is much more than that of the lynx, it would sink through, while the lighter cat rides on top. The lynx seldom sinks more than four inches, even in deep snow.

Tracks can be identified with more certainty by following them. The gait of the lynx is almost continuously a walk, leaving tracks like zigzag stitching; left right, left right. I have measured strides of up to 27 inches, but this measurement is characteristically 18, sometimes less. The fisher bounds in deep snow and shuffles along when going is easy, in contrast. The movements of dogs are usually more erratic, less deliberate.

The lynx jumps up to 16 feet horizontally at once, but more usually seven to 10 feet, with seldom more than six jumps in succession. An additional characteristic of all the cats is that they walk downed trees and occasionally climb, too.

I have measured lynx tracks up to slightly more than six inches wide. Where this animal bedded in the snow, the bed was two feet long, not longer.

Claw marks in a lynx track, when they are visible (which is very seldom) are very narrow – about 1/16th of an inch wide. The claws are flat, left to right.

– Bill Noble, Assistant Regional Biologist

Penobscot

Checking hunting camps and registration stations this week turned up a continued slow deer kill in our region.

Reasons for this are being discussed over camp tables and store counters and bring out as many theories as which caliber is best for hunting deer. Some of the ideas floating around at these sessions are low hunter numbers, phase of the moon, no deer, seeing does and lambs but no bucks, too warm, too windy, no beechnuts, rut not going strong yet, an “early” season, and many more.

Talking with a number of hunters, the general impression has been the rut is just starting to get going in good shape, good lines of ground scrapes have been seen in the last couple of days, and some people have reported seeing a number of does moving around.

With few to mostly no deer permits issued in the Wildlife Management Districts (WMDs) comprising Region F, along with last year’s severe winter, we expected a lower total harvest. With two weeks left of the regular firearms season and the peak of the rut to occur, I am expecting more hunters to see the old, big one. Although we do not have the numbers of deer some of the districts in Southern MAine have, large, older deer do live here, and can be seen – and once in awhile taken.

Attached are photos of such a big one. According to the hunters and the registration station that weighed the deer, it weighed 277 pounds, with a 12-point rack, and a 271/4-inch outside spread. Another deer taken this week in this region weighed 262 pounds, also with a good rack.

– Buster Carter, Assistant Regional Biologist