Explanation:I believe there are five main reasons for the declines experienced in several Midwestern states.
1 – Hemorrhagic Disease
We had a record hemorrhagic disease (HD) outbreak in 2007 and another in 2012. The Midwest lost tens of thousands of deer to HD and many states haven’t fully recovered from it.
2 – Severe Winter Weather
We experienced severe winter weather during the past few years. Severe winters in the Upper Midwest can increase adult mortality, reduce fawn survival, and impact antler growth the following year as bucks have to recover the additional weight lost during the severe winter. This leaves less nutrition for antler growth.
3 – Intentional Herd Reduction
Several states were intentionally reducing their deer herds over the past decade. Many states were aggressively harvesting antlerless deer, and when you reduce the herd the buck harvest declines. In the Midwest today, only one state wildlife agency (Indiana) says it is trying to reduce the deer herd, the others are either trying to stabilize or grow their herds.
4 – Falling Fawn Recruitment
Eight states in the Midwest measure fawn recruitment rates today. In my opinion, every state should be monitoring this important statistic. Back in 2005 only five of the eight states measured fawn survival, and it has dropped in all five from 2005 to 2014. You can blame it on predators, nutrition, climate change, or whatever you’d like, but the reality is far fewer fawns are surviving today than they did a decade ago. Approximately every other fawn born is a buck fawn, so fewer fawns means fewer bucks are recruited into the herd.
5 – Habitat Loss
The last reason is arguably the most important in this list, and it is habitat loss. From 2007 to 2014 the U.S. enrolled 9.1 million fewer acres into the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The CRP is the most successful federal wildlife habitat program, and it pays landowners a fee to convert highly erodible cropland and environmentally sensitive acreage to wildlife habitat. It can include grasses, trees, windbreaks, shelterbelts, buffer strips and more. In most cases, CRP acres provide exceptional wildlife habitat, and this is especially true in the intensively row-cropped Midwest where cover was already the limiting habitat component.
