A couple of followup tidbits to a story I wrote last week about a regulated hunt to reduce the number of deer in Duke Forest.
First, I got a few comments from readers wondering how the Duke Forest folks count deer.
I asked Judson Edeburn, who manages Duke Forest. Here's his explanation:
"We got a permit to do a spotlight survey on our forest roads. We sampled the routes several times over a few weeks and averaged the results. Counted eyes, divided by 2 and extrapolated the sample."
Also - some of the debate related to the deer hunt has to do with the method - bow-and-arrow hunting. Some folks say it's dangerous, particularly if done in residential areas.
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission keeps data on this sort of thing and issues annual reports.
You can read the latest report, from 2007-08, by clicking open the attachment below this blog post.
But I'll summarize: according to the report, there were three reports of non-fatal bow-and-arrow hunting accidents in 2007-08, and no fatal accidents. (Page 17 of the report; thanks to Carolyn Rickard with the commission for this info.)
