AUGUSTA – The state’s biologists are looking into their crystal balls, and they have seen a healthy deer population that will likely mean more any-deer permits will be made available to hunters this fall.

While last year’s harsh winter stressed many deer populations, particularly in the northern regions of the state, the combination of a low deer kill during the 2001 hunting season and this year’s relatively mild winter, suggest that populations could rebound.

“It appears that we’re carrying the deer through in good shape,” Lee Perry, commissioner for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife told his advisory commission members Thursday.

Last fall, hunters shot 25 percent fewer deer than the previous year – only 9,116 animals – according to statistical data released Thursday by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Some of the decline can be attributed to bad weather during the 2001 season, and some to a general reduction in Maine’s deer population, according to the department.

DIF&W survey information shows that the deer population remains smaller than ideal in about half the state as a result of last year’s harsh winter. Since December 2000, the deer herd in Maine declined about 18 percent, a loss of roughly 50,000 deer.

The outlook is more promising for 2002, however.

“Last year’s winter was one of the harshest in the past 30 years, but the early spring was good for fawn survival,” DIF&W biologist Gerry Levigne said in a prepared statement. “We do have a jump in restoring population levels in some areas.”

The number of any-deer permits – which allow a hunter to kill either a buck or a doe – that are made available in any given year is determined by DIF&W biologists’ population predictions. The permits are distributed regionally through the department’s system of 30 wildlife management districts, depending on the deer population in the local area.

Only 54,000 any-deer permits were made available statewide last fall, and no permits were granted in 12 of the wildlife management districts. It is unlikely that any of those 12 districts will receive any deer permits this fall, biologists said Thursday.

The districts with the lowest deer populations are mostly in Aroostook and Washington counties. However, midcoast areas continue to show an extremely healthy deer herd that needs reducing. More any-deer permits will likely be made available in coastal areas south of Blue Hill bay.

Biologists have not yet released a projected number of any-deer permits that will be made available for the 2002 hunting season, but said Thursday that the number will exceed 54,000 statewide.

Exact permit numbers will not be set until May, when the deer management strategy for 2002 is made final.