It’s reached a point where we started seeing some exponential growth in some places,” Shaw said. “We started at a very low level and slowly built up a population over time.

There were 8,007 harvested in 2017 last year, up from 7,158 in 2016 and 5,735 from 2008, a nearly 27 percent increase over the 10-year average. One reason for the sharp increase is that the numbers started low a decade ago, Shaw said, but they are still impressive.Īntlered buck numbers also hit a record high in District 8, which includes Yancey, Mitchell and Rutherford counties east to Catawba County. There were 4,371 antlered bucks – considered a coveted, trophy species – reported killed this past season, up 12.7 percent from the 2016-17 season, and up 93 percent from 2008 when 2,270 were harvested in District 9. MORE: NC deer hunters are heard: Gun season will remain during Thanksgiving Week This matched the increase for District 9, which includes most of Western North Carolina from Buncombe County west to the Tennessee border.īut the harvest of antlered bucks in WNC was 60 percent higher than the 10-year average, said Jonathan Shaw, wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Commission, based in Raleigh. ASHEVILLE - Deer hunters in the mountains bagged a record high number of antlered bucks this past hunting season, following a 10-year trend of “exponential” growth.Īccording to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, hunters reported a total 161,854 white-tailed deer (antlered, button bucks and does) killed, or harvested, across the state during the 2017-2018 hunting season, an increase of 8 percent from the 2016-2017 season.

Tn record deer 2017