By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

Enrollment is open for a program that allows Texas landowners an extended deer hunting season and more liberal bag limits.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) began accepting applications for the Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP) conservation option opened April 2.

Sign up for the harvest option follows May 1.

“Ultimately, this program is intended to foster and support sound habitat and wildlife management on private lands and encourage good stewardship with Texas landowners,” Alan Cain, TPWD white-tailed deer program leader, said. “Part of the program is recognizing that deer harvest is an important aspect of habitat management and wildlife conservation.”

To help prevent overpopulation of deer in a particular area, which can negatively impact the environment and other wildlife, landowners enrolled in MLDP have additional opportunities to harvest deer.

“Landowners enrolled in MLDP are able to take advantage of an extended deer season, which basically runs from around Oct. 1 to the end of February,” Cain told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “They receive liberalized harvest opportunities, including the method of take, depending on the particular option you’re in.”

MLDP launched in 1996. The public-private partnership is important to the state’s wildlife and habitat conservation goals because the majority of land in Texas is privately owned.

“For the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to be successful in wildlife conservation and carry out our mission in Texas, we’ve really got to have a government agency/public entity in a partnership with the private landowners in Texas,” Cain said. “The MLD program allows us to build that public and private partnership to really further wildlife and habitat conservation in the state.”

MLDP includes two options for interested landowners.

The conservation option offers participants the opportunity to work with a TPWD biologist to receive customized, ranch-specific habitat and deer harvest recommendations and MLDP tags for white-tailed and/or mule deer.

“You can harvest buck and anterless deer from Oct. 1 to the end of February with any legal means,” Cain said. “You can hunt in October with a firearm, and that’s a very attractive benefit.”

The bag limits, or tags, issued for landowners enrolled in the MLDP conservation option are based on deer population data from the enrolled property.

“To get into the conservation option, you have to have two years previous survey data or deer population data of some sort,” Cain said. “You have to have conducted two habitat management practices in each of the two preceding years.”

Landowners interested in the conservation option also need two years of harvest data (the number of bucks killed) to get into the program.

“We’re going to provide specific habitat management recommendations to help you meet your deer harvest goals, your deer management goals or your wildlife and habitat management goals on the property,” Cain said. “Then once you’re in, you have to conduct some sort of annual deer population data and provide that to our staff because that’s what we’re going to use to make the harvest recommendations.”

Open enrollment for the conservation option is through June 15. Once enrollment is approved, it will automatically renew for the next hunting season unless a landowner withdraws from the program.

Cost is $300 for the first management unit and $30 for each additional management unit. Cost for an aggregate site is $300.

Wildlife management cooperative members may enroll for $30 per management unit.

The harvest option is the automated, do-it-yourself option.

“It’s intended for landowners that may not need as much assistance and are maybe just looking for a couple of tags or the benefits of the extended season,” Cain said. “The harvest option doesn’t require a wildlife management plan.”

The harvest option does not require data collection or any habitat management practices.

Those enrolled in the harvest option receive a deer harvest recommendation, tag issuance and general guidance about wildlife and habitat management based on survey data.

“The nice thing about the harvest option for landowners is that you can choose to either have tags issued for antlerless deer–does so to speak–bucks or both buck and antlerless,” Cain said.

Open enrollment for the harvest option is May 1 to Sept. 1. Cost is $30 per management unit.

The fee for the program was implemented during the 2021-22 deer season to pay for additional wildlife biologists for the growing MLDP program.

“We’ve seen nearly a 1200 percent increase in growth in the program over that time period, but really didn’t add any additional staff,” Cain said. “So, after a lot of discussion over the last several years, and input from our stakeholders and advisory committees, the recommendation was to charge a fee for participation.”

More than 11,000 properties at nearly 28 million acres are enrolled in MLDP.

Interested landowners can apply on TPWD’s Land Management Assistance website.

Enrollment requirements are listed here.