Arkansas Deer Population: About 875,00,000 whitetail deer in 2021. Estimated at around 1 million in 2011 through 2018 and 900,000 in 2021. A record hunt of 216,835 deer taken in 2020 with a lot of hunters afield during the pandemic. The population has been roughly stable since the year 2000.
Arkansas Deer News
Nine Arkansas cities to begin deer hunting in early fall May 23, 2023 KARK
... “We need a safe way to hunt deer, and obviously shooting deer in places like that is not safe and that’s why we turn to urban bow hunts,” Jeff Williams of the Arkansas Game and Commission said...
Chronic Wasting Disease, Map exposes deer disease’s sobering reality April 23, 2023 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... the latest map shows the disease steadily filling gaps between occurrences across the state. The highest prevalence rates, about 32%, are in the vicinity of the Buffalo National River... The intent of eliminating antler point restrictions in the CWD control zones is to encourage hunters to shoot young bucks, but hunters are not doing that ..,
Factors Affecting the Sex Ratio of White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Fetuses in Arkansas J Garrie, R Meeker 2022, Arkansas Academy of Science [recently posted online
... Fetuses from 1,208 female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were collected over a 10-year period (2002-2012), across 75 counties in Arkansas... We found that mass of the mother had the greatest impact on fetal sex-ratios, with heavier females producing more male fetuses (β = 0.217 ± 0.008, P = 0.001). Female body condition (KFI) did not impact fetal sex-ratios...
2022-23 deer harvest up from 2021-22 season March 9, 2023 Arkansas, Stuttgart Daily Leader
... “There’s a variety of reasons why we will be down (from our average). We had a record harvest in 2020, so we may have impacted some carryover. Add to that some inclement weather during muzzleloader season, the warmest Arkansas winter on record, and a phenomenal mast crop (which is known to greatly affect deer movement), and it’s easy to see where we landed...
Clarksville man faces jail time for illegally dumping deer carcasses January 13, 2023 Arkansas, KNWA News
... Arkansas Game and Fish found that a taxidermy and processing business in the area paid a man to dispose of the carcasses ...
Piles of deer carcasses and bones dumped on Johnson County, Arkansas land January 10, 2023 Arkansas, YAHOO!News
... Illegally dumping deer carcasses can spread chronic waste disease, a commission spokesman reports. None of the remains had been buried properly when found, and the man accused of dumping them did not have permission, law officers allege...
As promised: Arkansas’ wolf report December 11, 2022 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... I have received reports of at least 12 gray wolves in the state, not counting the private restocking of wolves from Minnesota or old reports of a red wolf killed in the 1950s. It seems that Arkansas has a wolf population of between 75 and 125 ...
5 Best Whitetail Hunting States in the Southeastern U.S. October 23, 2022 Arkansas, Wide Open Spaces
... a very healthy deer herd estimated around 1.1 million animals and an abundance of public land open to hunting with 3.2 million acres or 9.7% of the state...
AGFC using new tactic to tackle chronic wasting disease October 7, 2022 Arkansas, KSLA
... “If we have a hunter anywhere in the state and they want to get their deer tested, look on AGFC.com. There is a list of available drop-off locations, there’s also available taxidermist that we’re working with, and so there are many options to have their deer tested,” ...
Why Do Baby Deer Have Spots? August 8, 2022 Arkansas, Mental Floss
... As Henderson State University biology professor Renn Tumlison explains, the flecks effectively camouflage a fawn by mimicking patches of sunlight that shine through trees and other plants, landing unevenly across the already-varied neutral hues on the forest floor...
Sheep finds a new deer family July 22, 2022 Arkansas, 5 News
... The video shows the sheep galloping with the deer as it tries to fit in... "the sheep was like, I don’t know, it just was funny because it shook and it couldn’t run as fast,” ... But, the lead doe stopped to help guide the sheep...
AGFC, USFWS to evaluate deer disease in south Arkansas February 5, 2022 Arkansas, Magnolia Banner News
... In response to the recent detection of a deer with chronic wasting disease in Union County, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA APHIS Wildlife Services will conduct a sampling effort on Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge during the next week to further understand the prevalence of the disease in south Arkansas...
CWD tends to attack older deer January 6, 2022
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) biologists said that hardly any bucks older than 4 years were sampled. They concluded that bucks of that age simply don't exist in that area anymore... Reeves said, almost all of the deer he observed on his property were sick ...
State Game and Fish Commission faces tricky predicament with spread of chronic wasting disease January 3, 2022 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... detected in more than 1,290 white-tailed deer and elk in Arkansas' Northwest quarter since 2016, ... they don't hear people expressing a lot of concern about chronic wasting disease turning up in deer they kill or eat. They do worry about "the state stepping in and maybe taking away deer-feeding privileges" ...
Chronic wasting disease found in deer in four more Arkansas counties, including one outside the containment zone January 1, 2022 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... Crawford, Franklin and Van Buren are already in the agency's 21-county CWD Management Zone in Northwest and north-central Arkansas... Randolph -- An 11-point buck killed Nov. 14, near Dalton. The deer was located about 25 miles from the closest known case ..,
CWD case in Union County jolts 'Deer Factory' December 5, 2021 Arkansas Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
... the first case of CWD in Deer Management Zone 12, Arkansas's Deer Factory. The nearest positive result came from Issaquena County, Miss., about 120 miles away... A total of 1,182 deer and 35 elk have tested positive for the disease in Arkansas...
Chronic wasting disease found in deer in southern Arkansas December 2, 2021 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... Chronic wasting disease has been found in a deer in southern Arkansas, near the Louisiana state line ... in the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge in Union County ...
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to start testing deer for COVID-19 November 14, 2021 KATV
... Researchers at Penn State recently released a study conducted in Iowa. The study showed that researchers saw active infections in at least 30% of the deer tested in 2020... There are more than 100 locations across the state where you can drop a deer off to be tested...
2020-21 Arkansas Deer Summary Report September 15, 2021 FOX16.com
... Hunters interested in scouting a new piece of public hunting land may want to take a look at the recently published 2020-21 Arkansas Deer Summary Report ...
State hunters killed record tally of deer May 27, 2021 Arkansas, Arkansas Online
... deer hunters killed a record 216,835 deer during the 2020-21 deer seasons ... 103,973 antlered bucks and 99,378 does ... more people might have hunted deer as a result of being off work because of covid-19..,
Geneticists discover historic legacy of white-tailed deer in Arkansas May 27, 2021 Phys.org
... Unregulated hunting at the turn of the century virtually eliminated white-tailed deer in eastern North America, leading to a restocking effort in the 1930s ... the genetic echoes of historic translocation from Wisconsin remain apparent in Arkansas deer from the southcentral part of the state... those in the northwestern part of the state seemingly represent historic Arkansas populations ...
State research contributes to more understanding of chronic wasting disease April 25, 2021 Arkansas, Magnolia Reporter
... results from the 2020-21 chronic wasting disease monitoring effort. The AGFC received 7,808 samples from white-tailed deer and 57 samples from elk during the 2020-21 hunting seasons. Of those samples, 261 white-tailed deer and seven elk tested positive for the disease..,
As Chronic Wasting Disease spreads, stricter management proposed February 19, 2021 Arkansas, Batesville Daily Guard
... Chronic Wasting Disease was first identified in Arkansas in 2016, but state wildlife veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Ballard said because infection is hard to detect, it likely persisted long before then..,
Arkansas Deer Archive: Population and Management, Deer in the News, Disease, Suburban Management, Transportation
Deer Data: Population estimates reported in the press for 2022 of 1.1 million and nearly one million deer. Based on hunting data an estimate of 875,000 deer in 2021. An estimate of 2020 of 900,000 deer from Outdoor Life. The record 2020 deer kill is partially attributed to more hunter hunting longer as a result of the pandemic. Abundant food supported populations in 2019. The number of resident deer hunters fell by about 15 percent in the five years leading up to 2019. A estimate by the state at 1 million or more deer in 2012 through 2017 and 2018, a million in 2011. A wet spring and dry summer in 2018. Record harvest of 213,487 in 2013, slightly less in 2014.
The chart below shows the estimated population based on the approximate estimates mentioned in this column and hunting data. The data. The year 2000 population and year 2021 are about the same.
An estimated population of about one million in 2013, up from 400,000 to 500,000 in the 1980s. Good environmental conditions for the herd in 2013 with a wet spring and summer, good browse through summer, and high mast production. A goal of a deer sex ratio of 50-50 in 2013. Very strong population in south Arkansas, but less robust in the Ozarks. Fewer deer in the northeast, where there is limited habitat, and in the Ouachita Mountains, where there is poor soil fertility and habitat quality. Deer in the northwest rely significantly on the acorn crop which vary dramatically from year to year. Deer in south have a wider variety of food source which makes it less variable.
The state strategy is a balanced hunt in terms of age and sex distributions, but many hunters won't shoot does. In 2013, for the first time ever, more does that bucks were reported in the harvest 107,247 does to 105,952 bucks. A legal buck must have both antlers shorter than 2 inches (button buck) or have three or more points on one side of his rack. Habitat is limited for deer, so populations are low in the northeast and the Ouachita Mountains. The peak of the rut is between October 28 and November 21 in the west of the state, a little later in the east, between Nov. 22 and Dec. 14. Average peak is Nov. 11.
Chronic Wasting Disease was first discovered in 2016 in an elk found dead near Pruitt on the Buffalo National River in October of 2015. Many new cases were discovered that year indicating the disease had been prevalent earlier. By early December, 150 white-tailed deer and six elk were confirmed with CWD. In 2016 the AGFC said there is no link between a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease reported Wednesday in Fayetteville and chronic wasting disease in Newton County.
Seventy new cases discovered during the 2017 deer season. In the 2018-19 hunting season 238 new cases. A total of 770 cases into December 2019. For the 2020-21 hunting season 7,808 samples from white-tailed deer and 57 samples resulted in 261 deer and seven elk testing positive with four more discovered at the end of the year. In April, 2023, the highest infection rate was 32% near the Buffalo National River and the total positives up to the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023 was 1.533 out of 50,558 tested.
Arkansas Deer Harvest 1938 to 2021
Source: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
History: Deer were abundant prior to the arrival of Europeans, but over hunting and habitat destruction reduced the deer herd to about 2,000 in 1919. The 1917 Legislature passed an act to restrict hunting of does until 1922. An estimate of abut 500 deer in the 1920s. The 1927 flood killed many deer; the 1930 deer count was about 500 or less. When mandatory checking of hunted deer started in 1938, a population estimate of 5,000, just 203 deer were checked.
Restocking and deer refuges were implemented for the next 20 years, a buck only harvest was instituted to boost the herd. There were 44 refuges or deer farms in the restocking program in 1950. "In the 1940s and 1950s, the focus was on protecting does because the goal was to bring back populations from near extinction.
By 1946 biologists estimated there were nearly 32,000 whitetails in the state. An estimated 40,000 deer by 1950. By 1960 about 200,000. By 1972, when the population had reached 300,000, deer had spread to nearly every part of the state..,
About 300,000 deer in 1972 and 500,000 by 1985 when management shifted to stabilization with a significant doe harvest. An estimated 1989 population of 700,000 and 1990. In 1998 the three point rule made it illegal to shoot a buck with less than three antler points on one side, an effort to improve age demographics. About 25 percent of hunting is on public land.
Population Estimates: 25,000 in 1940, 230,000 in 1968. Estimates: Abundant in 1890. 2,000 in 1919. By 1930, less than 500. By 1946, nearly 32,000. In 1950. 40,000. In 1972, 300,000. Estimated at 33,565 in 1945. A 1954 estimate of 100,000 to 150,000.
Elk About 600 elk in 2016.
Mountain Lion: An unofficial estimate of 20 to 30 in the state in 2018, at least one female with cubs seen, another estimate of about 100.
Wolves: An unofficial estimate of 75 to 125 in 2022.
Report Sick Deer: (800) 482-9262 or email cwdinfo@agfc.ar.gov Information on Chronic Wasting Disease in Arkansas
Other useful links:
- Deer Hunting Regulations and Information - Deer Harvest Data
- Arkansas Conservation Center
Report sick deer to Game and Fish at 1-800-482-9262
- Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
- Statewide Goals and Objectives General Objective Example for Deer Management Manage and maintain a healthy, stable deer herd appropriate for the habitat.