DEC: Too Many Deer, Females Now Fair Game

With an exceptionally mild winter in 2011/12 and below average winter conditions in 2012/13, deer populations have grown to what is estimated to be more than one million in the state. Therefore the DEC will be issuing a record number - 400,615 - of Deer Management Permits this year.

Deer Management Permits allows hunters to kill antlerless deer. Antlers are the large, branching bony appendages on the heads of male deer. Females do not have antlers.

During the last few years, about 500,000 deer hunters took some 220,000 deer annually.

While deer have a potential life span of 12 years, they seldom live longer than five years. About 20 - 25 percent of the herd is killed each year by hunters.

With the permit, New York's deer hunting regulations will allow a hunter, using a gun, with a big game license, to take a buck with an antler at least three inches in length and a doe.

With some luck, a hunter might bag both the mother and father of the same fawn.