By CRAIG FREILICH

The number of deer taken during last year’s hunting seasons is expected to be slightly ahead of the 2009 count.

But coming up with a number that conservation officials can use to plan for the future is not just a matter of counting heads.

Blanche Town, principal fish and wildlife technician at the DEC’s Potsdam office, reports that she has heard “some grumblings from hunters in the (St. Lawrence) River Plain. But in the foothills of the Adirondacks, they are doing well,” she said, as deer hunting season was coming to a close in the North Country.

State Department of Environmental Conservation Regional Wildlife Manager Jim Farquhar, out of DEC Region 6’s Watertown office, says the most recent periodic report he has seen indicates that the 2010 deer harvest “had just crept above last year’s level at the same date.

“That probably means the deer take will end up over last year’s total a bit – no quantum leap – but that falls in line with what we were expecting,” a couple of percent more for 2010, he said.

The process of counting harvested deer is somewhat complicated, but Farquhar says the method has proven to be fairly accurate over the years.

First is the number of kills reported by hunters. DEC Watertown spokesman Steve Litwhiler says that “hunters are required to report taking a deer, but not everyone does. They have a week to report their deer, which is new this year. It used to be 48 hours.”

Next are the reports the DEC gets from meat-cutters who handle the fresh venison. “They look at the age, size of antlers, hunter information, and report that to DEC,” Litwhiler said. But the number of official meat-cutters has dwindled to almost nothing in the North Country, and those that remain, such as Tri-Town Packing in Winthrop, reportedly have as much business as they can handle without the deer season business, and rarely process whole deer anymore.

Unofficial venison processors have popped up to cover the late-autumn and early-winter rush, such as one in Norwood that reportedly was handling a dozen deer a day at the peak of the harvest.

DEC’s Town says she checks with four or five “meat lockers” in the region, to get data on the deer, including a count and checking on chronic wasting disease. But in any case, the reporting from processors is “completely voluntary.”

About 10 percent of all deer taken – 20,000 in 2009 – are physically checked by state biologists for general condition and for signs of chronic wasting disease.

Hunter and deer information from all those sources – reports from hunters, figures from meatpackers, examinations by biologists – are supplemented by reports from conservation officers and police in the course of their regular duties.

Then the DEC number-crunchers cross-refer the data from those sources and extrapolate the totals they report and use – what they call the “calculated take.”

Litwhiler says the method of counting “has been challenged many times, tested many times, and verified many times.

“We’re satisfied that we are within eight percent of the actual number.”

The 222,800 deer taken in the state in 2009 included more than 120,700 antlerless deer (adult females and fawns) and just over 102,000 adult bucks. Antlerless takes in 2009 grew by 3 percent from 2008 (117,232), while buck takes dropped 3.5 percent from 2008 (105,747). Totals for bow and muzzleloader seasons were on par with recent years.

Differences during the 2009 season were most noticeable in the Northern Zone, DEC said, where the antlerless take was down by almost 8 percent and buck take dropped 21 percent from 2008, returning to levels seen in 2005 and 2006. Warm weather in the North County in November 2009 accounts for some of the decline, the experts say. Both deer and hunter activity tend to slow down in warm weather and the lack of snow cover makes for difficult hunting during a time that typically accounts for the majority of deer harvest.

In the state’s Wildlife Management Unit 6A in 2009, the local task force recommended allowing the deer population to increase by 10 percent gradually through 2015. In St. Lawrence County, Unit 6A covers the area of the St. Lawrence River Plain north of U.S. Rt. 11. WMU 6C covers the area between Rt. 11 and the Adirondack Park’s Blue Line. WMU 6F includes the southeastern portion of the county inside the park.

DEC attempts to adjust populations in each unit each season by issuing a limited number of DMPs – deer management permits –that allow taking extra antlerless deer. If they want the population to go down, more permits for does go out.

“And if we want the population to grow, we issue fewer permits, to allow a higher level of reproduction,” Fraquhar said.

The full report on the 2010 deer season will be out by early February, Litwhiler said.