Things change to protect resources
My son Clayton and I were headed to the hunting club early last Saturday morning to spread some lime and fertilizer on a new food plot. He surprised me with something he had seen online.
"How about this," he said. "I saw that a new law has made hunting with deer scents illegal."
I answered, "Naw, that sounds like fake news to me."
Well, I found out later that he was right.
A couple of days later, I got a text from our Lowcountry club secretary that a new regulation makes it illegal to use or possess any material that contains any secretion or substance collected from a deer for the purpose of hunting. It would not prohibit the use of synthetic products or substances from a deer that was legally harvested by a hunter in South Carolina.
Later that same day, I got an email from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. The concern is over Chronic Wasting Disease. The majority of deer lures and attractants are made from secretions collected from captive deer herds. CWD has been documented in many captive deer herds, and the potential exists for products to be contaminated. Once the disease is introduced in an area, it can remain in the environment, where local wild deer may be infected.
The new regulation will take effect in the 2019-20 deer season. It will be illegal to possess or use, for the purpose of hunting or scouting, any material that contains any excretion collected from a deer.
There is no way to test products for CWD that are frequently batched and distributed from multiple locations across the country, and the department is being proactive in prohibiting their use in order to minimize the potential for CWD introduction into the state.
The SCDNR does not have the authority to ban the sale of these commercial products but just their usage in the field for hunting or scouting purposes until it can be proven that CWD is not distributed across the landscape through the use of these products.
Another change is in the deer tagging program. I got an email earlier this month about deer tags being mailed out to hunters. The tags this year will include three buck tags and two antlerless deer tags. The antlerless tags may be used any day of the season beginning Sept. 15 in game zones 2, 3 and 4. Game zone 1 tags can be used beginning Oct. 1.
This change was based on feedback from hunters. DNR staff worked with the General Assembly during this past legislative session to eliminate the eight-date specific antlerless tags and replace them with two tags that are not date specific. Resident hunters will also be able to purchase four additional antlerless tags at $5 each. All deer must be tagged immediately after harvest.
Deer tags are not available over the counter at licensed sales vendors but are available at SCDNR offices in Charleston, Columbia, Clemson, Florence and York. Lifetime, Senior/Gratis/Disability and Youth tags must be requested annually. Tags can be requested by calling 1-866-714-3611 or (803) 734-3833. Tags can also be requested or ordered online.
More than 150,000 sets of tags will be mailed in the span of a couple of weeks, and SCDNR asks that current license holders who should be receiving a set of tags in the mail be patient and not call or email about the status of tags until Aug. 1.
Deer tags are a relatively new change to the deer hunting culture of South Carolina. A ban on the use of commercial deer lures is another change and is intended to protect our resources for future generations.
Reach Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.