Deer hunting … 1973 by Ralph Bice  October 3, 1973

An Historical Insight

This last week I talked to a number of deer hunters and the topic of conversation always turns to the prospects for the deer hunting season this fall. That last several falls have not been too encouraging. Deer have declined steadily the last seven or eight years and at the same time the number of hunters is getting greater every fall. The time cannot be too far away when some changes in the deer hunting set up must be made but so far the powers that be do not seem to be caring.

East Parry Sound was not so long ago just about the best producing deer hunting area in Ontario. The fact that there was no hunting east of us in Algonquin Park was a big help in keeping the area stocked. Many of the older hunters can remember the deer situation in the late twenties when deer had disappeared almost to the point of extinction. Then deer started to return, not just one or two but in bunches in the early thirties and by 1940 there was good hunting again.

Now these deer returned to a forest almost exactly as they had left it. There had been no fires, no logging. There was a slight set back in 1942 as that was a very severe winter. But the deer herd seemed to increase each year and I think it would be safe to say that the hunter success was in excess of 75%.

Most of us can recall those two very severe winters, 59-60 and 60-61. Too, we can recall the poor hunting there has been ever since. We are told that there is no feed and no shelter but really, unless the deer have changed their habits, the woods look pretty much the same, to me at least, as it did after the First World War. There are numerous roads but as far as feed goes there should be plenty.

So, why no deer?

We see letters in the press telling about the terrible slaughter of our wildlife by hunters yet there was a report not so long ago telling us that predation and cars killed more deer than hunters.

What is the answer?

No one seems to know. In a magazine I get each month the editor asks hunters to write to the Minister or their member suggesting that something be done to try and improve the deer hunting. Hunter groups have been asking for years that something be done to help hunting. Over the last twenty-five years about the only thing that has been done to help hunters, and for this we can thank Frank McDougall who was Deputy then, was to stop issuing leases for hunt camps. There had been a sort of rule that new ones would not be granted within two miles of another leased camp, and then changed to one and a half miles. But people with lots of pull could get around that and hunt camps were getting a bit crowded. But outside of this I don’t think anything else has been done.

True, there has been a deer study going on now for eighteen years but no one has seen a report yet. Since I know the man in charge, I doubt if he ever went deer hunting.

Recently there was an article in a well-read magazine asking for a meeting to talk over the deer question. It was suggested that several naturalist groups attend and the well organized O.F.H.A. No one suggested that hunters be present.

Some years ago I sat on a panel discussion in Sudbury and I stuck with predator control plus some controls on hunting. One of the province’s top biologists said nothing could be done until they had the facts. Surely they could come up with something in ten years.

Last summer two young men, both biologists, used one of our camps while making a study of water in certain streams and lakes. I was a bit surprised when these men who had never been in the woods told me that at school, and they were from different colleges, they were told there were still plenty of deer in the woods and the wolves were needed to keep them healthy. After all these years. I asked if either had read the two books written after the wolf study in Algonquin Park and neither had. So as long as the seats of learning are teaching such misleading ideas about deer what are we to expect?

So the cards are stacked against the hunters. Looks like all that is wanted is our ten dollars. Funny, but in spite of the scarcity of deer I do have my fifty-ninth deer hunting license in my pocket.

It does seem that the modern idea is that unless you have a degree in Biology you cannot possibly understand what is going on in the woods. Pick up a pamphlet at the gate going into Algonquin Park and you will read that deer are new in our largest Park. I suppose a lot of people will believe it but there were deer in Algonquin Park at least twenty  years before that area was set aside as a reserve.

Rather a grumpy column but deer season is not far away and the hunting looks to be the poorest on record.

NOTE TO THE EDITOR:

On page 20 last issue you ask how to spell Magnetawan. Please look at page one and see how to spell realize.

NOTE TO RALPH:

Realize or realise means the same thing and can be spelled either way. By the way, how do you like the picture of the deer on the front page?