Conservation Corner: March 12, 2001

TELE-CHECK: Enhancing Deer and
Turkey Management, Part 2
by James L. Cummins

This is the second of a two-part series on Tele-check, a proposed program of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP). County level biological data would provide opportunities to monitor populations, make management decisions and evaluate impacts on a localized basis. This level of information will strengthen and compliment current data collection programs. In addition, actual harvest numbers will be provided instead of an estimate extrapolated from a small sample of hunters. Currently, abiding by deer and turkey bag limits is at the discretion of hunters since there is no method to monitor an individual hunter's harvest. A compliance system would provide a tool to assist enforcement in protecting populations from over-harvest.

The MDWFP is considering implementing a telephone harvest reporting and compliance system for deer and turkey. The Tele-check system would require a Harvest Report Card to be on your possession while hunting deer and turkeys. The card would have individual notches and lines for each deer and turkey that could be legally taken under the bag limit. Currently, this would be 3 bucks, 3 antlerless deer, 2 antlerless deer taken with archery and 3 turkeys.

Hunters would be required to validate their Harvest Report Card by notching the appropriate line immediately after harvesting an animal. Validating the card would be equivalent to using one of your tags under a tagging system. Wildlife officers would have the opportunity to check successful hunters to ensure their Harvest Report Card has been properly validated. Hunters also would be required to call a toll-free number within 24 hours to report information about their harvest. The user-friendly, computerized telephone survey would ask successful deer hunters to enter county of harvest, sex, number of antler points and beam length. Turkey hunters would enter county of harvest, beard length and spur length. Hunters would be issued a confirmation number. Wildlife officers would have access to the Tele-check data base to check if hunters reported their harvest.

Tagging and mandatory check stations would accomplish the same goals as Tele-check. The MDWFP has never implemented a mandatory check station system due to the burden of requiring hunters to transport harvested animals to a designated location. In addition, states with mandatory check stations report that the program is expensive to maintain and inefficient in the process of collecting accurate biological data.

The Tele-check system will benefit the MDWFP's enforcement and management programs. Wildlife officers will be able to enforce bag limit compliance by having a tool which provides the ability to monitor the harvest of individual hunters. Wildlife biologists will be able to better manage deer and turkey populations due to the immediate availability of harvest information on a county level. Additionally, hunters will benefit from having optimal recreational opportunities due to enhanced conservation and management of the state's deer and turkey resources.

James L. Cummins is Executive Director of the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Stoneville, Mississippi. Known as "Wildlife Mississippi," the Foundation is a non-profit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore and enhance fish, wildlife and plant resources throughout Mississippi.