Steuben County remained the best place in the state to harvest a deer in 2024.
Steuben once again far outpaced all other New York state counties in total deer harvest numbers, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s 2024-25 harvest estimates.
Steuben County hunters took 15,595 whitetails during the season, 6,700 more than the next highest total. Overall, New York state hunters harvested an estimated 223,304 deer during the 2024-25 hunting seasons.
That’s an increase of a little over 13,500 compared to 2023, but still slightly below the five-year average. The 2020 harvest of 253,990 deer remains the high this decade and the most since 2002.
“New York hunters had another safe and productive hunting season, providing a sustainable food source for themselves and their families and helping DEC manage the state’s deer herd,” said DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton. “By engaging in safe and ethical hunting practices and reporting their harvest, hunters continued the tradition of being conservation stewards.”
2024 deer harvest numbers in Southern Tier
Just under 15,600 deer were harvested in Steuben County in 2024. No other county cracked 9,000. Steuben County had the highest total harvest in all four categories tracked by DEC – adult buck (7,787), male fawn (938), adult doe (5,922) and female fawn (948).
Chautauqua County had the second-highest total harvest in the state at 8,895, followed closely by Allegany County with 8,737 and Cattaraugus County with 8,337. There was a sizeable gap to Jefferson County (6,871) and St. Lawrence County (6,589). Livingston County was seventh with 6,426 total harvests.
Digging deeper into the numbers, some small counties packed a punch with high harvest densities.
Yates County had the highest rates of harvest per square mile across the adult buck (5.8), adult doe (5.5), and antlerless (7.4) categories. Schuyler County hunters were also efficient, harvesting 5.1 adult buck per square mile, along with 4.5 adult doe and 6.1 antlerless deer.
Other top rates of adult buck harvest per square mile were recorded in Genesee (4.9), Orleans (4.9), Allegany (4.7) and Livingston (4.7) counties.
Steuben County hunters took 2.9 adult buck, 2.2 adult doe and 2.9 antlerless deer per square mile.
Elsewhere in the Southern Tier, Broome County hunters harvested 4,552 total deer while 2,991 were taken in Chemung County.
Notable numbers from statewide deer harvest
The Western Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario Plains regions had the highest deer harvest densities, with more than 10 deer harvested per square mile in WMUs 8G, 8H, 8M, 8N, 8R, 8S, 8T, and 8X.
DEC highlighted other notable numbers in the 2024 report:
DEC: No CWD found in wild deer in 2024
Although a case of Chronic Wasting Disease was confirmed in a captive red deer herd in Herkimer County last fall, no positive cases of CWD have been detected in wild deer since 2005, a positive streak that continued in 2024.
DEC tested 3,189 deer for CWD in 2024, its largest sampling effort since 2008.
DEC urged hunters to remain vigilant in 2025 and follow these guidelines to prevent the spread of CWD:
Do not consume game that appears sick or diseased. Contact the nearest DEC regional wildlife office or Environmental Conservation Police Officer to report a deer that appears sick, unusually thin, or behaves abnormally.
This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Where was the best place in New York state to harvest a deer in 2024? Inside the numbers
Reporting by Chris Potter, Hornell Evening Tribune / The Evening Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
