Bowhunters Set for Oak Mountain Hunt
By DAVID RAINER
A select group of bowhunters will again get the chance to chip away at the white-tailed deer overpopulation at Oak Mountain State Park when the first of two hunting sessions is held Dec. 18-19 at the 9,940-acre park near Birmingham.
In 2004, Barnett Lawley, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), decided controlled archery hunts would be the best way to deal with the park’s burgeoning deer herd, which had damaged the park’s habitat and affected not only the deer but the rest of the wildlife in the park.
Hunters registered online for the hunts and 80 hunters and 80 alternates were randomly chosen for the regulated hunts, the second of which will be Jan. 8-9, 2008.
 Lawley said not only do hunters get a chance to pursue their passion for bowhunting, but they also provide valuable assistance to wildlife managers.
“We are very appreciative of the bowhunters who participate in the hunt,” Lawley said. “It is a service to the natural resource, the state and deer herd. The overpopulation was the reason we started this hunt three years ago. We appreciate the hunters’ time and effort to help in this initiative.
“This is not a trophy hunt. The main goal is decrease the number of deer in the herd to protect the herd and the habitat. We have seen small improvements since these regulated hunts started. When we’re able to control populations, it will help the integrity of the park.”
Results from hunts during the 2006-2007 season offered a glimmer of encouragement for ADCNR wildlife managers. During last season’s hunts, 33 deer were taken – 17 bucks and 16 does.
Forrest Bailey, Natural Resource Manager with the State Parks Division, said 183 deer have been harvested since the program’s inception, while another 64 deer were taken out of the herd by animal control experts for a total of 247.
“Most of those deer were donated to Hunters Helping the Hungry,” Bailey said of the program (www.outdooralabama.com/hunting/HelpingHungry) that distributes donated venison to various food banks around the state. “Two people have actually come into the park and heard about the hunt that were needy and came into the park and we gave them deer from the cooler.
“We feel like this is a very positive start to bring the population in line with carrying capacity. Weight and percentage of fat conditions appear to be better now than in 2004. However, until the next herd health check is performed, it’s really too early to assess herd health based on what we know now.”
Bailey did say that park officials and employees have noticed a difference since the hunts started.
“We’re seeing more wildflower bloom, more forbs and viny plants that deer prefer to eat that have survived,” he said. “We’re also seeing more wild turkey and survivability of poults through late spring and summer. Short-term health is much better, but depending on the survivability during fawning season and number of fawns that survive, we’re still playing a numbers game with the influx of new animals into the population.
“Management considerations for the future at Oak Mountain include continued herd health checks, vegetative analysis, and a proposed population model study. Common sense, as well as the aforementioned management tools, will continue to aid the State Parks Division in ensuring a diverse and healthy plant and animal community within Oak Mountain State Park.”
Bailey said it became apparent in 1999 the deer were damaging the park’s habitat. After browse line studies done by Auburn University in 2000 and 2001 showed significant damage, five deer were taken from the herd and tested by the University of Georgia.
“The results indicated a parasitism/malnutrition syndrome, which is somewhat common for white-tailed deer in the Southeast,” Bailey said. “We looked at some of the plant species that typically bloom in the spring and they were not (blooming). The deer were just inundating these plant species. We realized at that point that we needed to try to implement some control, some management measures.”
Park managers managed pine beetle- and storm-damaged timber canopy openings to stimulate new plant growth, but they also knew the deer herd needed to be reduced.
Although Bailey said there has been some progress through the management of resources, he stopped short of forecasting an end to the damage to the habitat done by the deer.
“From last year’s hunts, we have looked at the condition of the animals and it appears a little better fat index, but there could be a variety of reasons other than the deer that have been taken out of the herd by the hunts,” he said. “The movement of these whitetails on and off the park could have something to do with it.”
Chris Cook, a wildlife biologist with the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division who specializes in whitetails, said balancing the deer herd with the habitat is a long-term proposition.
“This is a small step in the right direction with a long way to go,” Cook said. “This (the regulated hunts) was something new when it was initiated. It has been accepted by the public, for the most part, as necessary to control the herd.
“But this is going to be a tough one because we have to preserve the integrity of the park. This is something we haven’t had to deal with in the past. We have learned at Oak Mountain that this is one way to deal with this situation. A necessary part of it is reducing the number of deer in the park.”
Oak Mountain is considered only marginal habitat for whitetails and that will be difficult to change, according to Cook.
“The overwhelming majority is closed canopy forest, which means there’s not a lot of deer food most of the year,” he said. “They’re trying to get green stuff for them to feed on in the spring and summer when no acorns are available. When acorns are not plentiful, the deer are out of luck. The only way to fix that is putting sunlight on the ground and getting those preferred plants up. That’s the plan, but it’s a long drawn-out process.
“There has been some progress. From talking to folks at the park, they’re seeing plants they haven’t seen in a while. And they’re not seeing the browsing on the nutrition-poor plants they were browsing heavily before.”
Cook said from a biology standpoint, it’s hard to determine the health of the herd by the deer harvested. For example, during last January’s hunt the harvest included a 187-pound six-point that was three years old and a five-year-old nine-point that weighed only 103 pounds.
“I suspect the feeding by adjoining landowners could have quite an impact,” Cook said. “If they are providing free choice food year-round, you should expect to see deer in that area in decent condition because they’re not having to search for those limited food sources available in the park.”
Cook said the obvious goal is to balance the deer population with the available habitat in the park, and a bowhunt is the most viable tool.
“This may not be the most efficient way, but it does provide quite a bit of opportunity for bowhunters that are chosen,” he said. “They’re providing us with assistance and we’re providing them with an area they normally wouldn’t get to hunt, so there’s a balance there.”
That’s where hunters like Phillip Culbreth of North Carolina and Jimmy Sparks of Pelham come in.
Culbreth, who took a 186-pound buck during last year’s second hunt, said opportunity was the reason he applied for the hunt.
“We subscribe to Outdoor Alabama magazine because we come down here to hunt in Barbour County every January,” Culbreth said of he and Trish, his wife and hunting partner. “We saw an article about the Oak Mountain hunt and we applied and got drawn. We’ve been coming to Barbour County for about five years. We found out about it on the Internet and on TV, where they were talking about the rut in Alabama. The seasons around our house close on Jan. 1, so this gives us an extra month to hunt.”
Sparks, who took a 3 ½-year-old 10-point that weighed 151 pounds and a doe, wanted to provide assistance because of his first-hand knowledge of the problems caused by the deer in the park.
“I felt like I could help the situation here,” Sparks said. “I’m an avid bowhunter and believe in management. I thought if I ever got the chance I could help out. But these deer over here are harder to hunt than a lot of people think they are. They’re not tame deer. They’re very wild.
“My wife travels (Highway) 119 to work every day. She’s almost hit one. You see dead deer along the side of the road over there all the time. This is a needed hunt that needs to continue.”
The bowhunters will be under new regulations for this season’s hunts. A three-buck season limit is in place. At Oak Mountain, additional harvest restrictions will be implemented, Bailey said.
“This year a doe must be harvested and checked in before the archer is permitted to take a buck,” Bailey said. “The new antlered harvest regulation of three bucks, two of which may be any legal buck and the third must have four points on one side, will apply. We’re not going to divert from that regulation.”
PHOTO: Chris Cook, right, and Mike Sievering, wildlife biologists with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, take and record antler measurements on a buck harvested during a special archery hunt at Oak Mountain State Park in December, 2006.
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