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The 1969-70 deer season closed in Rappahannock County last Monday with 187 deer taken that day. This figure coupled with the 151 taken before the last day added up to an all-time record deer kill in Rappahannock with a total of 338 deer killed and checked. This is almost 4 times the previous year’s kill of 86. Two seasons back the total kill was but 43. The highest total in the past was in 1960 when 288 deer were taken.
This year’s kill included 125 does. A number of button bucks and bucks that had dropped their antlers were also taken the last day. The heavy snow along with unusually heavy hunting pressure were mainly responsible for the heavy kill the last day. Even before the last day though, Rappahannock had posted its best deer kill in almost 10 years. It appears deer were plentiful to begin the season. Several factors that probably account for this is the past two bountiful years for game during the rearing period and the other factor, ironically, a lack of food, mainly mast in the mountains during the late fall and early winter. It appears the trend of the deer movement was away from the high ground and the snow after Christmas just pushed them a little harder or a lot harder.
The question now is what dot's this year’s high kill mean to deer hunters next year and thereafter. Going back to past kill records again, we can see that following the big kill of almost 300 in i960 the kill just a year later was almost 200. The doe kill of 130 in ’60 was higher than even this years.
This would indicate Rappahannock can sustain a high1 kill and still show a good doer population the your after. Whether or not the deer herd can
bounce back like that again only | another year will tell.
One possible blessing in this1 seeming slaughter is that it appears we were headed for some j starvation among our deer It’s! not that any of the deer taken1 last Monday were in a sturved j condition. Many were smull but | only because they were young. I Rut because of an apparent lack j of mast in the Park and other j higher areas and this prolonged snow covering which appears to be with us for sometime, some starvation appeared inevitable This condition is, of course, relieved with the reduction of the population Quality is the irlain
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