A Berne man was charged late last month with several misdemeanor counts of taking deer illegally — one of many arrests made each hunting season by officers from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

The state manages its deer population with the goal of balancing the largest game animal in New York with its habitat, human land uses like farming and forestry, and recreational interests like hunting.

On Nov. 27, the department got an anonymous complaint of several untagged, potentially illegally gotten deer in a shed behind a house on Route 1 in Berne, according to Rick Georgeson, DEC spokesman for Region 4.

An Environmental Conservation Officer responded and found evidence of deer in a shed owned by Roger Chrysler Jr., 32, of Berne.

“Further investigation revealed three illegally obtained deer (one doe and two bucks) and one improperly tagged deer,” Georgeson reported.

Chrysler was charged with two counts of taking an antlerless (doe) deer without permit, both misdemeanors, and one count of taking an antlered (buck) deer without a permit, also a misdemeanor.

He was also charged with one count of possessing an improperly tagged deer, a violation. A carcass tag must be immediately filled out upon taking a deer and attached to the animal upon returning to a vehicle or camp.

Each misdemeanor is punishable by imprisonment of up to one year and/or a fine between $250 and $2,000. The violation is punishable by a fine of up to $250 and/or 15 days in jail.

The three illegally obtained deer were seized and given to a state-run venison donation program to be processed and distributed to families in need.

Permits are generally issued for bucks, male deer. “You have to apply separately for a female; that’s how the population is managed,” said Georgeson. The doe permits are issued for certain areas.

Often, Georgeson said, hunters break the law by killing a doe in an area they don’t have a permit for and pretending the dead doe came from the permitted area. Georgeson listed some of the other most common illegal practices: shooting with lights on, shooting after dark, and taking more than a permit allows.

About 40 percent of adult does are to be killed each year to keep deer numbers stable; more must be killed to reduce deer population. Each doe typically has two fawns yearly.

Only about a third of hunters with Deer Management Permits are successful. DEC staffers inspect deer at check stations, butchers, and other places as well as reviewing required reports for information on age, gender, physical condition, and place the deer was killed.

That information is combined with fieldwork data, surveys, and public opinion to refine the management program.

The numbers are determined by “a whole socio-economic process we use,” said Georgeson. “Citizen task forces hash out how many deer are acceptable per square mile,” he said. “It’s more social than ecological…Sportsmen like a lot of deer; it gives them more to shoot. But too many can cause problems.”

He listed, among those problems, increased car collisions with deer or deer eating ornamental shrubs in suburban neighborhoods. Farmers, he noted, can get special permits to kill deer if they are damaging crops.

The task forces are convened depending on “staff availability,” said Georgeson. The state has 85 wildlife management areas and, Georgeson said, each unit sets its own parameters.

In 2012, for example, two different task forces reached two different conclusions. One recommended a 15-percent increase in the current deer population, and another couldn’t come up with a consensus, leading DEC biologists to consider the input of the entire task force, ultimately adopting a 10-percent increase.

Representatives on the task forces included hunters, farmers, foresters, professional ecologists, resource-based businesses, law enforcement, and motorists.

A large haul of illegal deer is “not unheard of,” said Georgeson. He recalls a case in Region 4 where 20 or 30 illegal deer were found behind a trailer.

“Some of these people don’t care,” said Georgeson. “It’s frustrating. It’s one thing if you’re trying to feed your family. It’s another thing if you just want a rack to put on your wall.”

— Photo from Rick Georgeson, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Enforcement

The DEC has set up a 24-hour toll-free tip line: 1-844-332-3267. Complaints may be filed anonymously.

“If people hear shots in the night,” said Georgeson, “They should call.” It is legal to hunt only between sunrise and sunset.

Region 4, which covers nine counties including Albany, an area roughly the size of Connecticut, has about 25 officers, Georgeson said. Altogether, more than 300 Environmental Conservation Officers, known as ECOs, and investigators across the state each patrol an average of 400 acres.

“They live in their section and are dispatched from their homes,” said Georgeson. “They have full police power and specialize in Environmental Conservation Law.”

This includes such duties as measuring exhaust from diesel trucks, inspecting landfills for illegal dumping, and enforcing hunting rules. The bulk of their time during hunting season is spent on crimes related to hunting violations.

An unusual tool employed by officers is a “robo deer,” which Georgeson described as “a radio-controlled stuffed deer; its head can move and its tail can twitch.”

The robo deer is placed in a field along a back country road as officers, hiding out of sight, watch for a car or truck to cruise by slowly. The officers make the deer’s head turn and tail swish. If the cruising driver stops to shoot the robo deer, the officers emerge, confiscate his gun, and arrest him, then hasten him on his way to be ready for the next hunter.

Often, there are several violations, Georgeson said. Since permission is needed from a landowner to hunt on private property, trespassing can be charged. Also, it’s illegal to have a loaded firearm in the car. And, it’s illegal to shoot across a road.

“They get shot up pretty well,” said Georgeson of the robo deer. They are sponsored by sportsmen’s groups. “They cost thousands of dollars,” said Georgeson. “The vast majority of sportsmen are honest. The poachers give them a bad name.”

In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, Region 4 ECOs charged more than 200 people with more than 550 deer-hunting violations during the big-game season.

Of these charges, 242 were misdemeanors, including the illegal killing of 100 deer; discharging firearms within 500 feet of dwellings; shooting across roadways; possessing loaded firearms in vehicles; taking deer out of season or without a license; and using spotlights at night to hunt deer.

Fines for these charges can run up to $2,000 and violators can be sentenced up to a year in jail.

Other tickets were written for violations, including: trespassing, hunting over bait, feeding deer, possessing the tags of another hunter, illegally transporting the deer of another without a consignment tag, hunting without a license, and possessing an untagged deer.

Human Dimensions

The approach of managing deer with task force recommendations began in 1990, according to William Siemer, a research associate with the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell. A pilot program, in the Ithaca area where Cornell University is located, is currently testing a variation of the original 1990 template, he said.

“The basic idea is you get a better sense of local impact, positive and negative, on how to adjust the deer population,” said Siemer.

Siemer is part of the Human Dimensions Research Unit, which focuses on the human dimensions of natural resource management and policy. One of the unit’s projects, for example, is to explore the potential of wildlife-dependent recreation to foster resilience in local communities.

The DEC contracted with the Human Dimensions Research Unit on a survey of deer hunters, after a series of meetings in 2009 to gauge public opinion on management priorities.

The resulting statewide management plan for white-tailed deer lists six main goals, including managing deer “at levels that are appropriate for human and ecological concerns”; promoting and enhancing deer hunting; reducing negative impacts; fostering public understanding; promoting healthy forests; and ensuring resources needed to support sound management.

Across the state, with its 85 wildlife management areas, “It’s consistent in a number of ways,” said Siemer. “Basic concerns and interests fall into similar categories. But,” he went on, “the degree of problems and interest in deer harvesting varies as does the nature of the deer population itself.”

He went on, “In the past, input resulted in a decision to increase or decrease or to keep it about the same.” The task force members were given some guidelines on how much could be asked for. For example, a 100-percent increase or a reduction to zero wouldn’t be possible.

The goal has been to put together a group of stakeholders every five years for each wildlife management unit, he said. “If the task force recommended an increase or decrease of 5, 10, or 20 percent, within what the DEC thought was achievable, the agency would set a five-year population goal achieved through permits,” said Siemer. “That system will continue.”

Under the pilot program, in the spring, an across-the-board survey was given to residents in the central Finger Lakes area, incorporating three management wildlife units.

“In the past, task force members were asked to be key informants,” said Siemer. Each member was to represent a specific interest group, like farmers, motorists, gardeners, or hunters.  “That’s a lot to expect of people,” said Siemer. “Now we will have more quantitative information.”

A report on the survey results will be issued in the next few weeks, Siemer said. Although the results, he said, are “not particularly surprising,” the small-scale focus points up differences that may not otherwise be apparent. For example, one “hot spot” is Cayuga Heights, he said, a highly populated suburban village, where it’s hard to have deer removed because hunting isn’t allowed.

The pilot program will still involve a group of task force members who will meet, he said, and discuss the same kind of issues: collisions, tick-borne disease, crop damage, the values of deer hunting. Online seminars, or webinars, will be conducted on Jan. 20 and 27, which people can watch independently or gather at several locations to interact with others watching the webinars.

He concluded, “People are always concerned about health and safety and damage but they continue to enjoy and value the presence of deer.”