Preliminary numbers for New Hampshire’s deer hunt are in, and it was a good year for hunters. A mild winter meant big deer populations, and a 4% increase on the hunting season from last year.
According to Fish and Game before the hunting season started there were about 85,000 deer in the Granite state. This year, hunters took about 14 percent of those animals, just fewer than 11,600 deer.
Sullivan, Strafford and Rockingham counties had the highest number of kills, and Belknap, Carroll and Cheshire had the least. It was the biggest dear season since 2007.
Deer hunters weren’t the only ones to find burgeoning populations to harvest. Bear kills were up by 39 percent, and turkey hunters took 60 percent more birds during the fall season.
