ST. LOUIS — Hunters harvested 293,670 deer during Missouri’s 2021-2022 deer hunting season, according to the state’s Department of Conservation.
Of the deer harvested, 143,049 were antlered bucks, 26,599 were button bucks, and 124,022 were does. The top harvest counties for the season were Franklin with 6,392 deer harvested, Texas with 5,478, and Callaway with 5,452.
“We’ve seen an increasing trend in statewide deer harvest for about the past eight years,” said Missouri Department of Conservation cervid program supervisor Jason Isabelle.
“The deer population has continued to increase across much of southern Missouri at the same time that we’ve seen a population recovery in most of the counties impacted by the severe hemorrhagic disease outbreak that occurred in 2012,” he added.
While this past year’s harvest total was about 3% above the previous five-year average, it still fell slightly behind last year’s mark. Hunters harvested 297,214 deer during the 2020-2021 deer hunting season.
The deer hunting season ended on Jan. 15 with the close of the archery season. Preliminary data from the Department of Conversation shows hunters checked 60,834 deer, making it the third-highest archery deer harvest on record. St. Louis was among the top counties for the archery season, with 1,368 deer harvested.