News Release: Deer-Vehicle Collisions; Ga Deer Rut Map

[rustybucket]

I can verify that for South Berrien County the dates are dead on with what I saw from the stand this year. They also coincide directly to what we saw last year as well.

The only problem I see with this method is that 'Counties' don't really represent 'ranges' of deer. For instance around us, about halfway up Berrien county you get into another stock of deer that ruts later, and you can see those dates represented by the county north of us, Irwin.

According to the Map
Berrien: 11/2-11/9
Irwin: 11/24-11/30

In reality it should be
South Berrien: 11/2-11/9
North Berrien & Irwin: 11/24-11/30

Would be VERY cool if this data could be aggregated with regard to actual lat/long location rather than by county. That would give you a MUCH clearer picture of the layout of the range of different deer herds in Ga.

For those wondering why the rut dates range so widely in Ga, it's b/c of the deer that were stocked to ga back in the 60's. For instance deer that came from Wisconsin stock rut earlier than those that came from coastal stocks.

 

[C.Killmaster]

I can verify that for South Berrien County the dates are dead on with what I saw from the stand this year. They also coincide directly to what we saw last year as well.

The only problem I see with this method is that 'Counties' don't really represent 'ranges' of deer. For instance around us, about halfway up Berrien county you get into another stock of deer that ruts later, and you can see those dates represented by the county north of us, Irwin.

According to the Map
Berrien: 11/2-11/9
Irwin: 11/24-11/30

In reality it should be
South Berrien: 11/2-11/9
North Berrien & Irwin: 11/24-11/30

Would be VERY cool if this data could be aggregated with regard to actual lat/long location rather than by county. That would give you a MUCH clearer picture of the layout of the range of different deer herds in Ga.

For those wondering why the rut dates range so widely in Ga, it's b/c of the deer that were stocked to ga back in the 60's. For instance deer that came from Wisconsin stock rut earlier than those that came from coastal stocks.

I agree that it would be preferable to delineate it at a finer scale, but we don't have GPS coordinates for most of those collisions. You are correct about the influence of restocking on the rut, except that coastal deer rut in October and Wisconsin deer rut in November. Once you get north of Tennessee the whole rest of the country ruts in November.

 

[nmurph]

I wish the breakdown could be finer. I hunt on the north edge of a county with a late Oct date. The next county over is early Nov. It's definitely from the Nov 4-14 on the farm where I grew up and have hunted deer for over 35 years. I know hunters from the southern part of the county and they report the late Oct as a peak. That distance spans about 20 miles and the county to the north was a county that was stocked with Wisconsin deer.