New York State Bureau of Wildlife Deer Management Unit Deer Management Program Correspondence and Subject Files

Unarranged.

The Bureau of Wildlife, within the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), carries out the department's responsibilities relating to the protection, preservation, and when possible, restoration of wildlife populations to maintain the balance of ecological relationships in New York. In this series, the maintenance of deer populations is managed through the use of deer management units (DMUs), which are designated according to habitat similarity and analyzed by deer kill calculations. The DEC has the authority to issue the number of deer permits that has been deemed fit to properly manage regional deer herds, taking into account recreational opportunities, deer-vehicle collisions and other public safety issues, and the effect of overpopulation on other wildlife populations within the same ecosystem.

This series relates to the creation or maintenance of deer management units (DMUs) as a means of deer population control. The DMUs were mapped by Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) officials and categorized according to region. The DEC assigns hunting season beginning and ending dates and authorizes special seasons, according to the need for deer management as determined by its biologists' studies of malnutrition, winter kill, nuisance reports, and degradation of environment by over-browsing.

Records consists of reports and studies, maps, information tables, graphs, incoming and outgoing correspondence, bills and laws, news articles concerning hunting and rifle restrictions by local governments, memorandums, meeting minutes, and numerous records tracking deer management permit and party permit sales and sportsman education firearm class enrollment.

Records also include reports that calculate deer kill and are ultimately used to analyze the effectiveness of hunting to manage increasingly intolerable deer populations in various counties; press releases and news articles outlining regular and special seasons for hunting designated by the DEC; and correspondence between local governments and DEC regarding bills that might interfere with hunting as a means of deer population control.

B2719-19A: This accretion contains records which document snow accumulation throughout New York from 1937 through 1959. Staff of the Bureau of Game (predecessor to the Bureau of Wildlife) kept track of this information to better understand the impact of winter conditions on deer populations. Records include correspondence, graphs, and maps. Of particular note are a larger amount of reports documenting snow accumulation published by the New York Cooperative Snow Survey. Other topics of note covered in these records include deer wintering areas and winter mortality.

B2719-19: Folder list is available at the repository.

B2719-19, B2719-19A: These records were transferred under RDA 22900.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.