As hunt begins, drought may be a factor in size of harvested deer, quality of antlers, meat

Nov. 30—Despite being hunted each fall, deer find ways to survive.

The months of dry weather likely will not affect hunting, according to state game officials.

But processor Melinda Weimer has noticed a difference in the size and quality of antlers and the amount of quality meat Weimer Meats in Loyalhanna has been able to return to archery hunters.

“They’re just not really yielding meat they would have in the past,” she said, blaming the dry weather and what she speculated to be its potential impacts on food.

Joseph King agreed. The couple deer he treats to apples at his home on the South Side Slopes in Pittsburgh appear to be on the thin side.

“They’re just not getting what they need,” said King, a board member with the Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League. “It makes sense.”

Some of the more than half a million hunters who are expected to take to Pennsylvania’s woods Saturday for the first day of firearms season will be toting their guns through areas that are under a drought watch.

The amount of harvests during archery season have been normal, which indicates white-tailed deer were able to find water and food despite drought conditions locally, said Jake Wiedner, game warden cadet in the Southwest Region Office.

“They’re able to adapt very well,” he said. “We’re not seeing any impact from dry weather.”

After the driest summer since 2002, precipitation in the Pittsburgh region was still scarce as early fall set in, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Frazier. There has been 6.41 inches of precipitation since Sept. 1.

“This falls roughly about 2.5 inches below normal for the fall season,” he said.

A drought watch for much of the region, including Allegheny, Indiana, Fayette, Westmoreland and Somerset counties, was enacted by the state Department of Environmental Protection Nov. 1. To be declared as part of a watch, a county would have departed from normal ranges of stream flow, groundwater level, precipitation and soil moisture for three or more months.

John Pipak, vice president of the Sportsmen’s Association of Greensburg, said members of the group had typical success during archery season and he didn’t hear anything about any of the deer being smaller than normal. But dry weather could pose a problem for hunters.

“It’s hard to sneak around in the woods when it’s real dry,” he said.

It’s likely the streams and creeks deer frequent did not completely dry up, Wiedner said. Water levels were pretty low in those sources, Frazier agreed, but they appear to be getting back to normal now that precipitation has picked up as fall progresses.

If the food the herbivorous creatures typically forage isn’t available, they’ll just find something else, Wiedner said. In the fall, deer will forage in farm fields and they’ll search for trees that produce nuts, such as acorns and beechnuts, during the winter months. They also eat leaves, shrubs, crops, berries, grass and apples, among other sources, according to Field & Stream.

“They just learn to adjust,” said state game warden Andy Harvey, information and education supervisor. “They just learn to find another viable food source.”

Weimer said she noticed that does in particular haven’t had as much fat on their bodies when they’ve been harvested and processed at the shop she co-owns with her husband.

“I really think that is affecting the season this year,” she said. “If they don’t have enough to eat … they’re going to lose weight.”

Summertime is when deer are typically growing the most and they may not have been able to get the right amount of nutrients this year, King said. But hunters shouldn’t worry, the deer are still out there.

“Yeah, they’re going to be smaller, but not that much smaller,” he said.

Game commission officials are expecting this year to see similar deer harvest numbers as 2023 when hunters during firearms season took 254,710 deer — 86,260 with antlers and 168,450 without. In all 2023-24 deer hunting seasons, 430,010 white-tailed deer were taken statewide.

In the four Wildlife Management Units that compose most of the Pittsburgh region, nearly 40,000 antlered deer and 71,000 antlerless deer were taken during all 2023-24 seasons, according to the game commission.

Deer firearms season runs from Saturday to Dec. 14, excluding Dec. 8. Frazier said the weather is going to be chilly for opening weekend, with temperatures struggling to reach the 30s. It’ll be brisk and windy with gusts of up to 30 mph and windchill in the teens.

Renatta Signorini is a TribLive reporter covering breaking news, crime, courts and Jeannette. She has been working at the Trib since 2005. She can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com.

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