During the 2021 gun-deer season in November 2021 at Fort McCoy, many hunters saw success as the deer herd was plentiful, and the weather was cooperative, said Wildlife Biologist David Beckmann with the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
That success, Beckmann said, is because everyone supporting wildlife management at Fort McCoy is watching over the deer herd year-round on post — especially in the winter months right after a deer season.
Beckmann reflected on the success of the 2021 gun-deer season.
“As someone who has worked 32 opening weekends, I thought the season went well,” Beckmann said. “Our harvest goal was 300-350 deer, and we fell right in the middle. Hunter success was good, and many hunters from what I saw enjoyed the hunt.”
During the 2021 season, just like previous seasons, deer were brought to a biological-data collection/registration station. Beckmann said that data collection of deer ages and biological data is critical.
“That data we collect at the station is important to evaluate the herd health and calculate the installation deer population,” Beckmann said. “We collect important age and health data. We also collect lymph nodes for chronic wasting disease (CWD) testing.” Collected CWD samples are sent to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for analysis.
And having a deer hunt on post is an important management tool for the installation, he said.
“We have these hunts so we can continue to effectively manage our deer population,” Beckmann said. “The archery hunt and the gun-deer hunt are our best tools to maintain a healthy deer population on post and reduce impacts to endangered species, forest regeneration, and training land.”
The on-post archery and gun-deer seasons follow the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) season dates for Monroe County and combined usually run from September to December every year. For the 2021 season, the WDNR extended the archery hunt in Monroe County until the end of January. That’s four to five months of hunting pressure, which is then followed by winter for several more months.
Beckmann described what his team in the Natural Resources Branch begins doing in January each year to then look after the deer herd.
“At this time, the crews will look if there are any high deer concentrations in specific locations and then determine if addition habitat management is needed in the future,” Beckmann said. “The short periods of cold like some we’ve seen in January here is not as big of a problem if the deer have cover, which there is plenty of on Fort McCoy.
“It’s when we have prolonged cold (below-zero) cold when there is potential die-off of the deer herd,” Beckmann said. “Crews will keep an eye open for any deer mortality, but we feel with our deer population at management goals there is plenty of food and cover for them to survive.”
The health of the deer population after the winter also determines how many deer tags will be available for hunters later in the year, Beckmann said. That’s why much work goes into making sure estimates on the overall population are accurate.
“We use a population model based on the (Wisconsin) Department of Natural Resources’ Sex-Age-Kill model used until the early 2000s,” Beckmann said. “Our calculations, however, included adjustments based on more than 35 years of harvest and population data at Fort McCoy. These adjustments are developed to provide a more property-specific model to evaluate population levels and trends.”
In the mid-1990s, Beckmann said a researcher from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., was looking for deer harvest and population data from various organizations to build the population structure of the specific lands.
“We provided him with 15 years of data, and he used that to reconstruct the Fort McCoy deer population,” Beckmann said. “We did not provide him with our estimates at that time, but did discuss our evaluation of population trends. His results showed similar trends as we had seen, but our overall calculation of the deer population was higher in some instances. This is when we started to further look at factors that can be used adjust the population calculations to be more in line with our observations.”
Adjustments made in calculating Fort McCoy deer-population estimates included incorporating variations in the birth of fawns (buck fawns vs. doe fawns), which can affect population growth.
“Our summer field crews and various volunteers also collect roadside survey data on deer from July to September,” Beckmann said. “These observations record the number of deer seen to include bucks, does, and fawns. Our main intent is to see how many fawns are reported per does seen. This gives us an indication of the birth rate, numbers of fawns produced per doe, and if there are any impact from the previous winter.”
A healthy ecosystem is essential for a healthy deer population as well as for all wildlife at Fort McCoy, Beckmann said. That's why he said everyone on the NRB staff combines their skills in wildlife management, forestry, fisheries management, and natural-resources planning to keep the installation's ecosystem the best it can possibly be.
Learn more about deer hunting at Fort McCoy by visiting the installation iSportsman page at https://ftmccoy.isportsman.net. Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.
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