Naturally, sportsmen and women have a huge stake in future deer-management plans, and will be well represented on the stakeholders committee.

“The sportsmen’s component is broken down into two separate groups,” said Rogerson. “Deer hunters, obviously, will be one group. But sportsmen who are not deer hunters will also be represented.

“We’ve found that with leasing and such, if you’re a rabbit hunter or a goose hunter, a lot of properties aren’t allowing your forms of hunting to take place until deer seasons are over. Farmers and property owners have received money from deer hunters, so these hunters are given first right on these properties.

“Similarly, because some state wildlife areas get so much pressure from deer hunters, for safety reasons we have to close them to small-game hunting when a firearms deer season is occurring. So our deer seasons are impacting these other forms of hunting as well. In all, we have 10 different groups, totaling 20 individuals. Deer are a public resource owned by the public. This is our big step to try and get what the public wants. So we are excited about it.”

Stakeholder committee meetings will amass information that will gradually be boiled down. County-based public meetings will take place to garner further feedback, following which Division of Fish and Wildlife personnel will produce a first draft of its deer-management plan.

“The plan is to stay status quo for the upcoming deer season,” said Rogerson. “Then through this process, any potential changes will take place during the 2009-10 seasons.”

When the stakeholders committee meets this year (the initial meeting was slated to take place last spring), a long list of deer-management-related issues will be under consideration.

“Sunday hunting, sharpshooting, fertility-control drugs are just an example of the issues we’ll be looking at,” noted Rogerson.

“We have some areas in the state where we’ve reached our deer population goal. In those areas, we can begin to start cutting back on the liberalization of deer hunting.

“Through this committee, we can look at our options on how to go about reducing the harvest.”

Deer harvests in target areas can be decreased in a number of ways, said Rogerson.

“Several years ago, we created an October antlerless season,” he said.

“Essentially, every Friday, Saturday and Monday in October, hunters could go out with a shotgun and harvest an antlerless deer.

“This has been very successful in increasing our antlerless harvest, but drew much trepidation from archery hunters.

“They weren’t in favor on those extra antlerless days at a time when traditionally, they had the woods pretty much to themselves.

“Eliminating those extra days is one possibility. Also, in Delaware, including youth and archery seasons, we have nine separate seasons in which deer can be hunted.

“So we can shorten or eliminate a variety of seasons to achieve our reduced harvest goals.”

While the objective of reduced deer harvest may ultimately reduce deer hunting opportunities, the same is not true in some areas of the state.

Where increased harvests are still needed, particularly in the more populated areas, augmented opportunities may be forthcoming.

“In some areas, we still have too many deer,” said Rogerson. “So through that committee, we’ll try to gauge what more we can do to increase harvests.

“The use of crossbows is a potential option now widely favored by some bow hunters. States like Maryland and Virginia have had success with crossbow seasons, particularly in urban settings.

“We have urban problems just like they do, so crossbows might be an option in that situation.”

There’s your survey of some of the exciting options that are, or may be available to Maryland and Delaware deer hunters in the seasons to come.

But remember, wildlife management is a fluid discipline. Almost every year, changes and tweaks need to be made to ensure what’s best for the resource in the overall scheme of things.