Manitoulin鈥檚 deer survived a snowy winter thanks to an icy crust that let them reach food. Experts report the herd is healthy, with stable numbers and new fawns. To balance hunter success and farm protection, officials are keeping tag quotas steady at 6,100 for WMU 43B and 400 for WMU 43A.
MANITOULIN鈥擶hile the winter was tough for people on Manitoulin, it appears it wasn鈥檛 too hard on Island deer. At the annual Manitoulin deer advisory meeting last week, there was a general consensus among participants that deer fared the winter well, mostly due to the icy crust on top of the snow allowed them to reach cedar browse and the fact that snow depths weren鈥檛 bad until well into January.
鈥淚t鈥檚 interesting, it was one of those winters with a lot of snow, but there was not a lot of noise on feeding or breaking trails for deer,鈥 stated Paul Methner, retired Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) biologist. 鈥淓arly on, I thought it would be a winter to remember, but I know myself I didn鈥檛 see deer in a lot of hardship, at least the deer I watched in my area (south shore/Tehkummah).鈥
鈥淗ow long did the crust last?鈥 asked Denis Gendron, management biologist with the MNR Sudbury and area district, who chaired the meeting.
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