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DEC: 2025 – 2026 New York hunting season marks first time in modern history where mature buck harvests exceeded yearling buck harvests

Published on May 21, 2026

Deer

Last year’s hunting season marked a milestone for New York’s modern day history. For the first time that records can show, mature buck harvests exceeded yearling buck harvests.

“The results from this past season continue to demonstrate that New York has much to offer for deer hunters,” said DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton.

The 2025 antlered buck harvest of 120,909 was 1% less than 2024, but finally passed a landmark in buck age structure. For the first time in modern history, the DEC confirms that New York hunters harvested as many 3.5-year-old or older bucks (28.1%) as yearling bucks (28.0%).

For comparison, 25 years ago only 10% of harvested bucks in New York were 3.5 years old or older and 67% were 1.5 years old.

Meanwhile, the 2025 antlerless deer harvest of 106,123 was up 5% from 2024. However, antlerless deer harvest throughout much of New York was still below what is necessary to achieve deer population objectives.

Notable Numbers from the 2025 Deer Seasons:

  • 0: The number of positive results from 3,050 wild deer tested for Chronic Wasting Disease, as efforts continue to “Keep NY’s wild deer CWD-free.”
  • 530,808: The number of licensed NY hunters during the 2025 deer hunting seasons, an estimated 85% of whom actively participated in deer hunting.
  • 11%: The estimated percentage of hunters who used the newly-offered E-tags for all of their 2025 deer hunting. An additional 19% of hunters used a combination of E-tags and paper tags throughout the hunting seasons.
  • 63%: The portion of successful deer hunters reporting their harvest as required by law. This is well above the five-year average of 49%. Harvest reporting was likely increased through hunters adopting E-tagging, which requires immediate reporting as part of the tagging process.
  • 2,567: The estimated deer harvest by 12–15-year-old hunters during the Youth Firearms Season.
  • 17.1 and 0.7: The estimated number of deer harvested per square mile in the Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) with the highest (WMU 8R) and lowest (WMU 5F) harvest density.
  • 12,385: The number of harvested deer checked by DEC field staff to gather data such as deer age, sex, and hunter reporting rates. This check data, along with hunter harvest reports, allows DEC to estimate the total deer harvest and monitor trends in deer populations.

Since the DEC amended a part of their Environmental Conservation Law last year to allow hunters to use crossbows in the same seasons, places and manner as a vertical bow, officials say hunters have certainly started taking advantage. In fact, the DEC claims that accounted for 55% of the total archery season deer harvest, up from 33% the year prior.

NYS DEC image.

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