Hunters in New York killed an estimated 231,961 deer during the 2022 hunting seasons, a 10-percent increase from last year, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced.
The 2022-23 estimated deer take included 116,425 antlered bucks and 115,536 antlerless deer. Statewide, this represents a five-percent increase in antlered bucks killed and a 15-percent increase in antlerless deer killed from last season.
Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) affected areas of the Hudson Valley and eastern shores of Lake Ontario in 2020 and 2021, resulting in reduced deer hunting success in these areas. Increases in buck harvest, which DEC tracks as an index of deer population abundance, during the 2022-23 seasons indicate that deer populations in affected areas are recovering.
Hunters also took greater advantage of several new deer hunting opportunities established in 2021. More than 2,000 antlerless deer were killed during the mid-September antlerless-only season. This is a nine-percent increase from 2021. This season was established to increase hunting of antlerless deer in wildlife management units (WMUs) where deer populations need to be reduced based on DEC’s deer population objectives.
Nearly 2,300 deer, a 38-percent increase from 2021, were killed by youth hunters during the Youth Hunt Weekend. The increase was due in part to an increase 12- and 13-year old hunters participating in the second year of a pilot program established by the State Legislature that allows hunters aged 12-13 to hunt deer with a firearm. A summary report of deer hunting by 12- and 13-year-old hunters in 2022 is available on DEC’s website.
Lastly, Southern Zone hunters expanded their participation in the Holiday Deer Hunt, a second portion of the late bow and muzzleloader season that spans from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, designed to provide additional hunting opportunity when students are on school break and families are gathered for the holidays. Nearly 4,000 deer, representing an 11-percent increase from 2021, were killed during the 2021-22 Holiday Hunt. Young hunters also reported killing more deer during the Holiday Deer Hunt than during the traditional portion of the late bow and muzzleloader season.
Across the state, hunters continued to voluntarily pass up young bucks, and about 64 percent of the antlered bucks harvested were 2.5 years old or older. DEC’s Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow educational campaign promotes individual choice and voluntary restraint to shift the age composition of bucks killed in New York State towards older age classes, while still providing hunters the freedom to kill any buck they desire. Since the campaign’s implementation, DEC has documented a steady increase in the proportion of bucks killed by hunters that are 2.5 years old or older.
Notable Numbers
- 6 and 0.6 — number of deer killed per square mile in the units with the highest (WMU 8R) and lowest (WMU 5F) density.
- 64% — portion of the adult bucks killed that was 2.5 years or older statewide, up from 45 percent a decade ago, and 30 percent in the 1990s.
- 4%— portion of deer hunters that reported killing a deer as required by law. This is below the five-year average of 49.3 percent.
- 13,568 — number of hunter-killed deer checked by DEC staff in 2022 to determine hunter reporting rate and collect biological data (e.g., age, sex, antler characteristics).
- 2,727 — deer tested for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in 2022-23; none tested positive. DEC has tested 63,012 deer for CWD since 2002.
Deer hunting data are gathered from two main sources — kill reports required of all hunters, and DEC’s examination of killed deer at meat processors and check stations across the state. Estimates are made by cross-referencing these two data sources and calculating the total deer killed from the reporting rate for each zone and tag type.
DEC’s 2022 Deer Harvest Summary report provides tables, charts, and maps detailing the deer killed around the state and can be found on DEC’s website. Past summaries are also available on DEC’s website.
Photo of youth hunter with whitetail deer courtesy DEC.
This human need to kill animals is nothing less than shameful. Contraception darting works to keep deer populations down. This hunting is ONLY perpetuated because of taking advantage of the ugly human love of slaughter (even to the point of getting very young children interested in killing animals before they even understand what they are doing) in order to fund government agencies that promote killing.
A barbaric ethos of a barbaric society that has less civilization than the animals it kills.
Don’t bother writing a response; I’m not interested in anything any killing agency or hunter has to say.