ODNR coordinating special deer hunts

In an effort to con­trol deer pop­u­la­tions impact­ing native plant com­mu­ni­ties, the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources’ Divi­sion of Nat­ural Areas and Pre­serves, in con­junc­tion with the ODNR Divi­sion of Parks, will again coor­di­nate spe­cial gun and archery deer hunts at seven state nature pre­serves across the state.

High qual­ity habi­tats at sev­eral state nature pre­serves includ­ing Goll Woods, Lawrence Woods, Christ­mas Rocks and Lake Katharine have been neg­a­tively impacted by over-browsing deer. For exam­ple, large flow­ered trillium—Ohio’s state wild­flower and once com­monly seen—have nearly dis­ap­peared from many sites because of for­ag­ing deer.

“Spe­cial man­age­ment hunts are an excel­lent tool we can uti­lize to pro­tect native plant com­mu­ni­ties in Ohio’s best nat­ural areas,” said Ryan Schroeder, pre­serve man­ager at Goll Woods State Nature Pre­serve. “These hunts allow Ohio’s hunters to assist us with our land man­age­ment activ­i­ties while giv­ing them a chance to see and appre­ci­ate some of Ohio’s high­est qual­ity nat­ural areas they may never see otherwise.”

Appli­ca­tion for the hunts this year will be han­dled at the local level by indi­vid­ual pre­serve man­agers. Hunters must attend indi­vid­ual meet­ings if they are inter­ested in par­tic­u­lar hunts. At that time, hunters can enter the draw­ing (up to five entries per hunter will be allowed with a $5 fee for each entry).

Hunters must pos­sess a valid 2012–13 hunt­ing license in order to pur­chase tick­ets. Names will be ran­domly drawn, and hunt­ing pairs will be assigned a two week block of time to hunt. The ori­en­ta­tion for the hunters will be con­ducted imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the draw­ing. Each spe­cial archery hunt per­mit will be good for two hunters for the two week period, although only one of the two hunters must attend the draw­ing and orientation.

These hunts are “doe first” hunts, mean­ing a buck can be taken only after an antler­less deer is har­vested. This helps ensure that the deer herd is impacted. Spe­cial reg­u­la­tions will be addressed at the ori­en­ta­tion meet­ings fol­low­ing the draw­ings. All ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife rules and reg­u­la­tions will be fol­lowed, includ­ing bag lim­its and tag­ging procedures.

The Lake Katharine Gun hunt draw­ing will be con­ducted in the same man­ner as the archery hunts, except that the ori­en­ta­tion will not be held the same day as the draw­ing. Pairs of hunters will be drawn for one of two pos­si­ble two-day hunts dur­ing the week­long statewide gun sea­son. Ori­en­ta­tions for the gun hunt will occur on the first morn­ing of the hunt period.

Hunters may apply for hunts at mul­ti­ple sites, but they must attend the meet­ing for each hunt in order to enter the draw­ing. Do not mail entry forms.

Hunt loca­tions and meet­ing dates are as follows:

The gun hunt draw­ing for Lake Katharine State Nature Pre­serve Office (Jack­son County) will be held at 1703 Katharine Road, Jack­son, Ohio 45640 on Sept. 8 at 10 a.m. Con­tact Jeff John­son at 740–380-8919 or jeff.johnson@dnr.state.oh.us with questions.

An archery hunt draw­ing for Christ­mas Rocks (Fair­field County) will be held at the Boch Hol­low State Nature Pre­serve, located at 7211 Bre­men Road, Logan, Ohio 43138 on Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. Con­tact Jeff John­son with questions.

An archery hunt draw­ing for Shal­len­berger (Fair­field County) will be held at the Boch Hol­low State Nature Pre­serve on Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. Con­tact Jeff John­son with questions.

The archery hunt draw­ing for Goll Woods (Ful­ton County) will be held at Goll Woods State Nature Pre­serve Office, located at 26093 County Road F., Arch­bold, Ohio 43502 on Sept. 1 at 9 a.m. Con­tact Ryan Schroeder at 419–445-1775 or ryan.schroeder@dnr.state.oh.us with questions.

The archery hunt draw­ing for Lawrence Woods (Hardin County) will be held at the Lawrence Woods State Nature Pre­serve park­ing area, located at 13278 County Road 190, Ken­ton, Ohio 43226 on Aug. 25 at 10 a.m. Con­tact Ryan Schroeder with questions.

For infor­ma­tion on the archery hunt draw­ing for Gahanna Woods (Franklin County), con­tact Chief Den­nis Mur­phy at 614–342-4240 or at dennis.murphy@gahanna.gov.

The archery hunt draw­ing for Black­hand Gorge (Lick­ing County) will be held at the Black­hand Gorge Main­te­nance Cen­ter, located at 5213 Rock Haven Road, Newark, Ohio 43056 on Sept. 15 at 10 a.m. Con­tact Jody Hol­land at 740–285-0130 or jody.holland@dnr.state.oh.us with questions.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Aug 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.