If you’ve ever been cautious about slowing your car for deer standing by the road, now is the time to do it. The winter may be safely behind, but it’s far from over for the whitetails.

Biologists in Maine and New Hampshire are in the process of evaluating the mortality of deer this winter. In New Hampshire, the estimated losses are such a concern that the state’s Fish and Game Commission decided Wednesday to reduce the length of next fall’s doe season.

In Maine, the final estimated winter toll on the deer herd will not be calculated until next week, but limitations will likely be imposed on the hunt because of the toll from the deep snow and the length of the winter. It is the last that has biologists in both states worried about further losses.

“When we see a late spring, there is a dramatic increase in roadkills,” said Gerry Lavigne, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s deer study leader. “Last Tuesday, there was still 16 inches of snow in the woods. Right now, they are attracted to the green in the road ditches, and they are less able to get out of their own way and to get out of your way [because they are malnourished].”

New Hampshire deer project leader Kip Adams said biologists there have not seen mortality among deer this bad since 1994.

Adams said efforts were stepped up this year to get an idea of mortality, with 150 deer yards checked and 300 dead deer picked up and inspected. Seventy percent were malnourished. Based on those findings, Adams said as many as 15,000 deer may have been lost from the post-hunt herd of 64,000.

Permit numbers for the next deer season in Maine are set in March. The last time the proposed numbers were adjusted down was in 1997, but then the changes affected only Aroostook County. This time they could affect the whole state.

Lavigne, biologists and volunteers gather data on Maine’s winter severity from 28 deer yards around the state from December through April. The last set of readings was taken Tuesday. As of Friday, Lavigne still awaited receipt of 10 readings that allow him to compute deer mortality.

Based on the results of that data, he said, biologists may propose allotting bucks-only permits or decreasing the number of any-deer permits in some areas. Maine has 30 wildlife management districts, and Lavigne said either scenario is possible in any of them.

Even if the winter in Maine is deemed to have been as hard on the deer herd as it was in New Hampshire, the deer season here still may not change as drastically because the hunt is managed less effectively in New Hampshire, say officials. While Maine state biologists manage the herd by the number of permits given out, New Hampshire attempts to do so by scaling back the number of days does can be hunted.

Adams said the New Hampshire system means biologists there have less control over how many deer will be taken.

“We have no idea if one hunter or 10,000 will hunt an area,” Adams said.

“Your system is much better than ours. We’ve been trying very hard to switch. We haven’t got public support,” he said.

Last year in Maine hunters killed 36,885 deer, more than in any year since 1980. Hunters took 21,422 antlered bucks, the first time the kill totaled more than 20,000.

However, hunters fell short of DIF&W’s projections for does. As a result, biologists proposed in March an increase in the number of any-deer permits to 93,200, up from 75,525. That could be scaled back.

DIF&W also has proposed a new bonus any-deer permit, which will allow hunters to take an extra deer in an area where antlerless permits go unclaimed. The new permit would change a tradition of allowing hunters one deer a season, a bag limit that has been used in Maine since 1925.

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation for the NEWS. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.