DMAP Deer Control In NY
Posted on July 27 2020
The DEC’s Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) helps qualifying landowners and resource managers implement site-specific deer management on their lands to address crop damage and forest regeneration problems and to conduct custom deer management. It also helps protect areas of sensitive and rare plants and enhances municipal deer harvest.
The Department of Environmental Conservation issues a special DMAP permit and a determined number of DMAP deer tags to a landowner or group of landowners whose property(s) is in need of site-specific deer management. DMAP is a hunting program. Permits and tags are valid for use only during the open deer hunting seasons and can only be used by licensed hunters. Only antlerless deer may be taken under the authority of a DMAP permit.
The question often arises who is eligible to receive DMAP permits. The following, cited directly from the DEC website, will clarify.
To be eligible for DMAP, applicant(s) must own or control lands in New York State that meet one of the following criteria:
— Land where agricultural damage has been documented or can be documented by the DEC, or a municipality that has an identified social or ecological problem due to deer within their municipal boundary. Municipal applicants must maintain a list of all participating properties with written consent of the associated landowners. They must ensure a process of tag distribution that provides equal opportunity for licensed hunters, or land where deer damage to significant natural communities has been documented or can be documented by the DEC.
— Land contained in one or more parcels totaling 100 or more acres of forest land and sharing a contiguous boundary, or multiple non-contiguous parcels of forest land of at least 100 acres each within the same or adjacent Wildlife Management Unit(s), where forest regeneration is negatively impacted by deer. Parcels of less than 100 acres may also be considered, if enrolled in the Real Property Tax Law section 480a program. The negative impact must be identified in an existing forest and/or land management plan for the land.
— Land contained in one or more parcels totaling 1000 or more acres and sharing a contiguous boundary that is involved in custom deer management such as Quality Deer Management (QDM). A deer management plan is required.
— Land where deer damage has been documented or can be documented by the DEC, and which is adjacent to or bordering a parcel of publicly-owned land that is at least 250 acres and is not open to deer hunting by law, regulation, or public agency policy.
Two or more landowners with contiguous boundaries may cooperate to meet the above acreage requirements to be eligible for DMAP.
To learn more about DMAP, determine if you are eligible, or to download a DMAP application, visit the webpage https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/33973.html.
The DMAP application deadline is Aug. 1.
Story re-posted from The Daily Gazette. Written by Jerrod Vila.
