With the whitetail deer population somewhere around 1 million and growing in Virginia, officials with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is considering instituting an “Earn a Buck” program in eight locales around the state where deer populations are the highest and most problematic.
The so-called Earn a Buck program requires that hunters harvest at least one doe deer before they are allowed to take a buck. This effort has been tried in other states with reasonable success and helps in reducing deer populations. Without the requirement, sometimes hunters will opt out of taking a doe and taking only buck deer instead. This leaves more does and more does mean more fawns in the spring and the cycle continues.
Read more about this proposal and the areas that will be affected here.
Tom Remington
