Veteran Georgia deer hunter Jeremy Kendrick usually hunts with a bow. But on Nov. 21, he carried a rifle because he wanted to take home some venison. Hunting private land in Lowndes County, not far from his home in Adel, Kendrick harvested what might be the oldest deer ever killed in the state. The Georgia doe was 20 ½ years old, according to the results he got from DeerAge.
Kendrick says he’d already seen several deer from his stand that morning, but nothing that was worth shooting. That all changed around 11 a.m.
“I was just about to get out of my stand that morning when I saw a good size doe at 60 yards,” Kendrick tells Outdoor Life. “I put my .270 WSM rifle’s scope crosshairs on her neck and squeezed the trigger.”
The doe dropped on the spot, and Kendrick climbed down to recover his deer. He says it was the first deer he’s taken with a rifle in years.
“When I got up to her I recognized her as an old doe that I’d been getting trail camera photos of for at least nine years,” he explains. “I knew it was her, because she had an unusual floppy ear that was easy to recognize, and a very long nose. She was an old veteran of the property. I’d seen her with fawns over the years. She just lived all that time in that general area.”
Kendrick says the deer moved slowly that morning. Aside from being a little lean, it was in otherwise good shape and had been feeding that morning. The doe still had leaves and grass in its mouth when Kendrick inspected it.
“She weighed 95 pounds and looked perfectly healthy on the outside,” says Kendrick, who’s already eaten and shared some of the doe’s meat. “After skinning, I found her hams and shoulders were great. But her backstraps and all along her mid-spine section were very boney.”
Kendrick makes European mounts of his deer. So, he is used to looking closely at whitetail skulls, bones, and teeth. He noticed the doe’s worn-down teeth right away and took the deer to a friend for him to inspect.
“Jeremie Wallace owns Life Outdoors bowshop in Valdosta, and he said he thought the deer was at least 15 years old,” Kendrick says. “He suggested I send her teeth to a place called DeerAge that does very scientific forensic work on aging deer.”
Kendrick did that, and the results from DeerAge showed that the doe was more than 20 years old. DeerAge, also known as Wildlife Analytical Laboratories, is based in Missoula, Montana, and the lab uses a process called “cementum annuli aging” that analyzes rings in teeth to accurately measure age. It’s similar to how trees are aged by looking at the growth rings in their trunks. This scientific process is twice as accurate as the visual “eruption-wear aging” technique commonly used by hunters.
Georgia deer biologist Charlie Killmaster told Kendrick that most Georgia deer live an average of five years in the wild, according to the Georgia Outdoor Network. They can live much longer, though, especially in captivity. The National Deer Association says there have been multiple does that lived past 18 and even up to 23 years old at different research facilities around the country. In terms of wild deer killed by hunters, the NDA points to data from Matson’s Lab, which has been aging hunter-killed deer since 1978.
Read Next: An Inside Look at the Wildlife Lab That Ages 10,000 Animals Every Month
“We’ve learned that in 2013, Matson’s aged a wild Louisiana whitetail doe at 22,” the NDA explains in a past article.
It’s possible that other, older deer have been taken by hunters over the years, and the Georgia DNR doesn’t maintain records for deer by age. Regardless of its record status, however, it’s an impressive animal that Kendrick says is worth honoring.
“I’m going to have a European skull mount made of her and put it in a glass covered display case. Not everyone mounts a doe, but this old girl was special.”
Read the full article here
