Oct. 19–Deer hunters can learn the approximate age of the deer they harvest this season by submitting photographs of the animal’s jaw bones to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
The photos and information are to be submitted through the deer page on the Wildlife Department’s website, www.wildlifedepartment.com. The photos then will be examined by one of the agency’s deer biologists to determine the age.
Hunters can check back on the agency’s website a week after submitting the photos to learn the age, said Nels Rodefeld, chief of the information and education division for the Wildlife Department.
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is the first agency in the country to offer such a service over the Internet, Rodefeld said.
“It’s the first attempt on this scale that we know of,” Rodefeld said.
Examining the teeth of deer is the best way to determine the age of the animal, Rodefeld said.
“That’s not always 100 percent accurate, but it’s the best science that exists,” he said.
Wildlife biologists have always physically examined deer jaw bones provided by deer processors and hunters to learn more about the age structure of the state’s deer herd.
“We like to keep track of the approximate age structure of both the buck and doe segments,” Rodefeld said. “It helps us do an assessment of the population. It’s not just for the sake of knowing it, because it could have implications on a variety of different things.”
Such information is used in evaluating bag limits, season lengths, method and means of harvest, and other deer hunting regulations, he said.
Biologists will continue to physically examine deer jaw bones, but by allowing hunters to submit photos of the jaw bones of harvested deer, the agency will get a larger sample size, Rodefeld said.
However, the primary reason for the service is to help educate and inform hunters, he said. Many deer hunters want to know the age of the deer they harvested, he said.
“It’s not possible to age deer on the hoof,” Rodefeld said. “You can guess whether it was old, middle age or young, but until somebody who is trained looks at the jaw bone, you don’t know. You are just guessing.”
For the past two years, the Wildlife Department has been on a public information campaign to encourage the state’s deer hunters to pass on younger bucks and harvest mature ones.
Providing hunters with the age of the deer they killed will let them know if they are being successful in harvesting more mature bucks, Rodefeld said.
“There are people who want this information,” he said. “It can provide validation or confirmation to what they were thinking when they shot the deer.”