Missouri Hunters Kill 239000 Deer During Firearms Season

If a hunting club in Latvia receive, for example, ten red deer licences, the hunters would be happy, as the whole hunting bag limit for 2011./2012 season is 8273 animals of total population of 43682 red deer. So reading that in the USA only in one state more than 200 thousand deer have been harvested on Latvian scale might seem unbelievable.

According to news portal KSPR.com Missouri's (USA) Conservation Department says hunters took nearly 239,000 deer during the 2011-2012 firearms hunting season. Conservation officials said the season's total was up about 7,400 from last year, but roughly 13,000 below the 10-year average.

Jason Sumners, a deer biologist with the Conservation Department, says this year's sharp departure from the 10-year average reflects a decline in deer populations in parts of central and northern Missouri. At the same time, Sumners says deer numbers in southern Missouri continue to increase gradually.

Photo: The Whitetail Deer