By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

Signup is now underway for a program that gives enrolled landowners additional opportunities to hunt deer while also encouraging conservation of natural resources and wildlife habitat.

“The Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP) is a program the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) developed a long time go,” Alan Cain, TPWD white-tailed deer program leader, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “It’s intended really to get landowners to foster and support good wildlife management, good stewardship of our wildlife resources and habitats on private lands.”

The program is habitat driven, but a big part of it is deer harvest.

“The department recognizes that deer harvest is an important aspect of habitat conservation,” Cain said. “One way to encourage landowners to do good habitat conservation is through deer harvest.”

There are two options for landowners through MLDP–the conservation option and the harvest option.

“We have a kind-of do-it-yourself option called the harvest option. Those landowners just really need a few tags, but don’t need a lot of assistance from our biologists,” Cain said.

The harvest option provides landowners with a harvest recommendation and MLDP tags for white-tailed deer or mule deer, depending on location.

It does not require habitat management practices, deer population data or the participant to work directly with a TPWD wildlife biologist.

The conservation option is more in-depth and provides a customized harvest recommendation from TPWD biologists based on deer surveys conducted on the property.

“The landowners are required to conduct some habitat management practices and collect harvest data and submit that information,” Cain said. “It gives landowners flexibility to mange the deer populations on their property outside of the normal hunting regulations—seasons and bag limits. MLD has its own season and site-specific bag limits.”

TPWD biologists sit down with landowners enrolled in the conservation option and analyze the deer survey data from the property.

They also look at the habitat, management practices and the landowner’s goals for the property whether that be bigger antlers, more deer or bigger body weights.

“It’s an incredibly important program. As far as harvest, last year I think there were around 365,000 tags issued, and they (enrolled landowners and hunters) harvested about 53% of those tags,” Cain said.

Enrollment in the conservation option is $300 for the first management unit, $30 for each additional unit, $300 for an aggregate site and $30 per management unit for members of a wildlife management cooperative.

Cost for the harvest option is $30 per management unit and $30 per aggregate site.

Open enrollment for the conservation option runs through June 15.

Harvest option enrollment is May 1-Sept. 1.

Landowners can sign-up through TPWD’s online Land Management Assistance system.

“You’ll need to create an account, which is pretty easy to do, and then you’ll map out your property and enter some information about that property,” Cain said. “Then, I think there’s a request to send a note to our biologists assigned to those counties, and they’ll respond to you and help you development a management plan if you need that, or you can enroll in the program contingent upon some of the requirements that need to be met.”

MLDP is open to landowners in any area of Texas. There’s no specific acreage limit, but a small acreage is needed to manage the deer population.

For landowners in areas with mule and white-tailed deer, a participant may indicate a preference for tags for white-tailed deer, mule deer or both.