RHINELANDER, WI (WSAU-WXPR) The winter started mild and ended severe, but the majority of the Northwoods deer herd appears to have survived it. The DNR’s Winter Severity Index is calculated by the number of days with snow depth to 18 inches when temperatures were below zero.
Acting DNR deer program specialist, Jeff Pritzl, says the season started out easy for deer, but things changed. “Everybody knows we had a very mild December and even January. On the good side, deer went into the winter in good condition. They really didn’t start to get affected until the very end of January. The period of difficult winter was the month of February. March was going to be a tell-tale sign and fortunately, things kind of broke.”
Pritzel says the cold snaps in February helped raise the severity index. But after the deep snow in February, it’s taken awhile for the snow to recede to the point where it’s not considered severe. “The scale goes from zero to 50 as mild, 50 to 80 is moderate, 80 to 100 is severe and we’re right around 80 for that general area. The high mark now is in Eagle River, they came in at 94. They had a few extra days of snow depth.”
Pritzel says the severity index is a key factor in determining what the potential herd growth will be. “A county like Vilas or Oneida may have an average projected growth rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent, just ballparking it. When the winter severity index gets higher we shave that productivity down to maybe 20 percent or 15 percent.”
More information is on the DNR website if you put ‘severity index’ the the site’s search box.
