MDC offers upcoming online program with focus on deer management for landowners

Landowners and Missouri residents are invited to watch an online program focused on wildlife and habitat management on private property.

Missouri Department of Conservation and the National Deer Association will host the live webinar at 6 p.m. March 28. The free webinar will also include first-hand accounts of landowner experiences with wildlife cooperatives. To watch, visit the following link to join the webinar: short.mdc.mo.gov/4g2

The Deer Management Assistance Program can help landowners manage deer on their properties by allowing them and hunters they designate to buy additional firearms permits to kill antlerless deer on the properties above and beyond regular-season harvest limits, according to MDC. Known as DMAP, the program provides landowners with science-based methods and information to address a spectrum of other local deer-management goals, including Quality Deer Management objectives.

“For some landowners, deer cause crop damage and other problems, even with deer removals through regular hunting seasons and damage authorizations,” said MDC Deer Biologist Kevyn Wiskirchen, who coordinates DMAP. “And some landowners need additional tools for achieving their deer-management goals for their properties. The program’s main goal is to maintain healthy deer populations while balancing landowner needs.”

Any private property of at least 500 acres located outside of municipal boundaries, regardless of the owner’s legal residence, is eligible for the program, according to Wiskirchen. For properties inside the boundaries of a city or town, at least 40 acres are required.

"Individual parcels of land, regardless of ownership, may be combined to satisfy the acreage requirements as long as no parcel of land is more than a half-mile (by air) from the boundary of another parcel being combined to form an enrolled DMAP property," MDC stated.

Other upcoming deer and deer management in the future as part of MDC’s Deer Management Assistance Program include:

• Deer Surveys on May 30 at 6 p.m. at zoom.us/j/83130071914#success
• Deer Aging Techniques on July 25 6 p.m. at zoom.us/j/87530565870#success
• Using Data to Inform Deer Management on Sept 12 at 6 p.m. at zoom.us/j/81780816373#success

To learn more about DMAP, visit MDC online at mdc.mo.gov/dmap, or contact your local MDC private land conservationist or conservation agent.