By DAVE DOMESCIK | Staff Writer

PELHAM – Oak Mountain State Park is utilizing a program from Alabama State Parks to healthily manage the park’s deer population.

State Park Special Opportunity Areas are properties where Alabama State Parks is offering a limited quota, preferential point draw, archery-only, public hunting opportunity. Hunters are selected through the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Public Hunts system, and are required to be selected and in possession of a valid permit for their selected date and location.

The hunts are used to manage the deer population within Oak Mountain State Park’s boundaries, which in turn benefits the native flora and fauna in the area. Evan Lawrence, a natural resource planner for the state explained why the program was created.

“Several years ago when we first started the program we had deer that were underweight and just unhealthy in general,” Lawrence said. “The main point of the program was to help manage that herd and keep the population under control to prevent things like highway strikes and stuff like that in the neighboring acreage to the park.”

Lawrence explained that the practice is actually more helpful than harmful to the deer.

“In general, you don’t want an underweight deer herd,” Lawrence said. “It’s not good for the animals and could be considered somewhat inhumane. You want to keep the animals in check and keep the herd healthy.”

Lawrence added that the hunts also positively impact the natural aesthetic of Oak Mountain State Park.

“If you have an overpopulation in the area, they (animals) will overgraze it,” Lawrence said. “Looking broadly, you’re managing your herd in a way that you know all the animals (in the area) have resources that they need. The hunters come in and play the role of the apex predator within that system.”

Lawrence recognized that the introduction of hunters to manage the ecosystem came from a lack of an aforementioned natural apex predator.

“Historically, we would have had things like wolves or coyotes keeping deer in check,” Lawrence said. “Today, we don’t really have that. Other than coyotes, deer don’t really have a predator and coyotes generally don’t take out adult deer. They’re usually after the smaller animals.”

Some of the main problems of deer overpopulation can be amplified, according to Lawrence, when many deer are underweight.

“Anytime you have unhealthy animals, you can have disease outbreaks,” Lawrence said. “The biggest problems that we have here (at Oak Mountain) and that are generally most noticeable from a public perspective are browse lines.”

Browse lines are horizontal lines that indicate where animals are eating vegetation. Lawrence explained the negative impact that these lines have.

“When you go to places that have an overpopulated herd, you will see browse lines on trees,” Lawrence said. “Your vegetation doesn’t grow like it should.”

Rather than employing the use of guns, the program is archery-only. Lawrence explained that, considering the park’s location and logistics, this was the only logical step to take.

“Archery is the preferred method of the program simply because we’re within (Pelham) city limits,” Lawrence said. “We can’t shut the park down and don’t want to shut the park down for gun hunting.”

The process to join one of the hunts is detailed and intricate to ensure that the right hunters are being selected, according to Lawrence.

“A hunter would go online, they can search for Alabama public hunts and register for the hunts that they are interested in,” Lawrence said. “Once registration closes, the computer system will randomly draw people. There is a preference point system, so if you have registered for hunting in the past and you didn’t receive one, you get a certain amount of preference points for next season.”

This process makes sure that the same people aren’t getting to hunt every time and ensuring every hunter gets an equal and fair opportunity to participate.

To quantify the success of the hunts, hunters will record if the deer are underweight and if the does they killed were lactating, but the weight of the deer remains the main concern of the hunts.

“Over time, you can see a trend, and if you’re weights are falling off and starting in a downward direction, you can make changes to the program that can help with that,” Lawrence said. “We are primarily focused on weight and managing that.”

Lawrence added that the deer population has remarkably improved thanks to the hunts, and encouraged interested citizens to participate if they desire.

“A decade ago, we had very underweight deer running around (the park),” Lawrence said. “Nowadays, we have animals that are full and healthy… I would encourage everybody to go out and learn how to hunt.”

According to Lawrence, the hunts generally open in September for registration. For more information on Oak Mountain State Park’s deer management hunts, visit Alapark.com/parks/oak-mountain-state-park/spsoa-deer-management-hunts.