A Technique for Delineating Optimum Deer Management Regions

A technique is presented (or delineating regions for improved deer management and planning. A G-value algorithm which maximizes the ratio between inter-county variability and statewide-variability among deer kill at each stage of grouping, was used to delineate most similar counties. The criterion used for preliminary regionalization in Virginia was deer kill per potential huntable land area per number of hunting days. Six regions resulted with an effectiveness rating of 0.9253. Comparisons made with present deer regions and state planning districts suggest a lower effectiveness in present regionalization. A concept of dynamic regionalization is proposed as an alternative to present methods.