TWRA is discussing potential policy and regulation changes focused on internal management and deer monitoring practices.
Wildlife Biologist Casey Mullen said the agency wants to implement a new system for obtaining and using information called adaptive harvest management. Mullen said the changes will have little impact on hunters.
“There’s not going to be a wide-reaching change, but there could be some changes in certain counties or certain areas, and they would be pretty small for the most part,” Mullen said. “Like it may change from one antler-less deer to two at certain segments.”
Mullen said the new plan involves changing how deer are monitored from a county-based system to a management unit-based system, with each unit containing around ten counties. He said the purpose of the change is to give more information to the TWRA so it can more effectively manage deer herds across the state.
“Instead of saying that we killed X number of deer in Putnam County last year, it will be we killed X number of deer in this deer management unit last year,” Mullen said. “So it’s a little more broad.”
Mullen said he does not want people to get confused by the complicated new system.
“We’re trying to keep it fairly simple on the sportsman’s end,” Mullen said. “They don’t necessarily need to understand how or why we’re changing this.”
Mullen said the TWRA will use a different system with different units for turkey monitoring.
“They’re similar because they’re based somewhat on geographic differences across the state,” Mullen said.
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