April 21, 2005

Hunters in Indiana took 123,000 wild white-tailed deer during the 2004 deer hunting season -- a 15 percent increase over the previous year's deer harvest of 106,986 deer.

The 2004 antlered buck harvest increased 10.6 percent to 54,768 deer. The antlerless deer harvest of 68,290 deer was almost 19 percent more than in 2003.

"Indiana's state-wide deer herd size has been slowly growing since 1998," said Department of Natural Resources deer biologist Jim Mitchell.

Mitchell says Indiana's wild deer resource annually contributes more than $168 million to the state's economy. "But this contribution, mostly from hunting activity and wildlife viewing, has to be weighed against crop damage and deer/vehicle crashes."

Indiana's total deer harvest has increased every season since 2000. About two million deer have been legally harvested during the past 53 Indiana deer-hunting seasons.

The number of deer harvested in individual counties ranged from 65 to 3,353 deer. For the first time in eight years, the harvest exceeded 3,000 deer in a county; both Steuben and Switzerland counties yielded more than 3,000 deer.

The five counties with the highest total deer harvest were:
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Switzerland - 3,353
Steuben - 3,083
Franklin - 2,997
Parke - 2.942
Dearborn - 2,798

The five counties with the lowest deer harvest were:
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Tipton  - 65
Benton - 147
Marion - 251
Hancock - 262
Clinton - 311

Last season's harvest put about 6 million pounds of venison on Indiana's kitchen tables. Hoosier deer hunters donated 17,000 pounds of venison to food pantries in 2004 through the Sportsmen Against Hunger program.