straw and stimulate herbaceous species such as
legumes and grasses. This single herbicide treatment
“captured” sites by removing the hardwood midstory
layer, and repeated prescribed burns maintained the
open stand conditions.
Herbicide work costs about $40 to $60 per acre
and prescribed burning runs $15 to $20 per acre.
However, spreading these expenses across an entire
Credit: Darren a. Miller
Chad Dacus (top), a biologist with Mississippi’s Deer Management assistance Program,
takes antler measurements from a buck harvested by a member of the Kemper County
Hunting Club Cooperative. When club members gather for annual meetings (above), they
discuss Quality Deer Management guidelines, which promote protection of young bucks
and healthier deer herds.
Credit: Darren a. Miller
cooperative reduces per-acre costs. For example,
from 2004 to 2008, we spent approximately $3 per
acre per year (across 11,500 acres) to establish 12
miles of fire lanes, herbicide-treat over 2,000 acres
of thinned pine, and burn about 1,600 acres of these
same thinned pines. In all, we managed approximately 25 percent of the available thinned plantations.
Enlisting the Help of Hunters
To assess impacts of our QDM program on the deer
herd and to refine deer management recommendations, each of the HCC hunting clubs was required
to collect biological data from each harvested deer
(weight, a jawbone for aging, lactation presence in
does, and antler measurements of bucks). Hunters
also followed MDWFP deer management recommendations, which included increasing doe harvest
to one doe per 100 acres. Buck antler restrictions
(minimum of 12 inches for antler spread or 15
inches for main beam length) were put in place to
protect all 1.5-year-old bucks and approximately 75
percent of the 2.5-year-old bucks from harvest.
From 2004 to 2008, HCC hunters harvested 347
bucks and 490 does. Doe harvest targets were
nearly met ( 1 per 117 acres) and doe harvest increased throughout the period from 69 in 2004 to
131 in 2007. Counter to hunter expectations due to
antler restrictions, buck harvest actually increased
from 54 in 2004 to 71 in 2007, but a lesser proportion of younger bucks were harvested over time. The
proportion of bucks at least 4. 5 years old increased
from 7 percent in 2004 to 17 percent in 2007.
Over the same four years, doe body weights increased by an average of 6. 4 pounds over the
county norm, and lactation rates rose from 57 to 69
percent, indicating a healthier deer herd. Before the
program began, says long-time EMSA club member
Don Delaney, “our herd was overpopulated with
immature bucks and a lot of does.” Things have
changed, he says. “Our deer have gotten bigger
since Weyerhaeuser started the program.”
Potential Boon to Biodiversity
All this is good news for the deer hunter, but what
about impacts on wildlife? Although we did not
document response of wildlife to our habitat management, we can infer the benefits across the HCC
landscape based on a 10-year study that examined
the combined use of fire and herbicides to manage
pine forests for biodiversity. Conducted from 1999
to 2008, the study was led by Mississippi State
