Private Deer Hunting on the Coastal Plain of North Carolina

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 29, No. 1, May 1989, pp. 1-16 PRIVATE DEER HUNTING ON THE COASTAL PLAIN OF NORTH CAROLINA Dorothy Stafford Mason INTRODUCTION. Hunting is an almost ubiquitous recreational pursuit in the United States. In 1980, 17,444,000 hunters spent almost $8,545,000 on hunting, and 11,400,000 of these hunters hunted deer. (1) In North Carolina, as in other Southern states, deer hunting is perceived as a sport that cuts across socioeconomic lines and which in recent years has increased in popularity. Although it has been considered a revenue source by some woodland owners, hunting rarely is the primary use of the land on which it occurs. In most instances, the primary use of the land is for timber, and little real interest is shown in wildlife management . This study is designed 1) to determine the amount and distribution of land hunted by deer clubs on the Coastal Plain of North Carolina and 2) to analyze spatial, ecological, and economic relationships between deer hunting and other uses of the land on which it occurs. (2) BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY. Most of the forested land of the Eastern United States provides a habitat suitable for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Desirable habitats are found in woodlands with numerous small clearings which provide edge zones where seedproducing and browse species grow in proximity to woodland cover or in bottomland hardwood areas where the diversity of species is great and cover is excellent. The history of the decline and resurgence of the white-tailed deer population in North Carolina mirrors that of the country as a whole. The number of white-tailed deer in the United States and Canada declined from an estimated 30,000,000 in 1500 to no more than 1,000,000 in 1900 as a result of subsistence as well as commercial hunting by Indians and European settlers. (3) In the Southern states, the low point was reached about 1920. Since that time, however, the deer population has recovered significantly in response to restocking efforts, more effectively controlled hunting, and reversion of cropland to forest. In Eastern North Dr. Mason is Professor ofGeography at North Carolina AuT State University in Greensboro, NC 27411. SOUTHEASTERN GEOGRAPHER Carolina, these factors have combined to stimulate the growth of deer herds which are presently near or at the carrying capacity of the habitat. Habitats vary in their ability to support deer populations; many bottomland hardwood areas can support 35-40 deer/sq mi, while pocosin areas, without substantial modification, can support only about 6 deer/sq mi. (4) A major problem in deer management is maintaining a healthy deer population in the various habitat types, and wildlife managers rely on hunting as the primary management tool. (5) During recent years, the reported white-tailed deer harvest in North Carolina has ranged from 23,184 deer in 1976-77 to 78,265 in 1987-88, and about two-thirds of these deer were taken in the Coastal Plain counties. (6) In these counties, hunters gain access to hunting lands by ownership of land, permit on state or federal game lands, fee or open hunting on private and industrial lands, or leasing hunting rights from private landowners, including industrial woodland owners. In 1985-86, 84% of the reported deer harvest was from clubs which held exclusive hunting rights on such privately owned land. Hunting rights were obtained on approximately 3,000,000 of the 9,000,000 acres of woodland in the study area in 1985-86 for about $1.00/acre in most cases, thus establishing club deer hunting as a significant land use in Eastern North Carolina. (7) RESEARCH PROCEDURE. The study area comprises Districts 1-4 of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) (Fig. 1). This area was chosen because it conforms to the physiographic boundary of the Coastal Plain, uses county unit boundaries, and has the advantage of being a region in which hunting season and other deer harvest regulations are essentially uniform. The first and most difficult task was identifying the hunting clubs in the study area and collecting data from them. A list of 730 clubs was compiled from field sheets on...