Wildlife biologists with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) have compiled harvest totals for the 2024–25 hunting season. While bear, deer, and turkey harvests decreased slightly, statewide harvest totals were remarkably similar to the previous year. According to DWR Wildlife Division Director Michael Lipford, “Although food abundance and weather impacts resulted in some local, year-to-year variation in harvests across the state, this year’s consistent statewide harvest totals reflect continued strong populations of these game species across much of Virginia.”
Harvest reporting by successful bear, deer, and turkey hunters remains a vital component of DWR’s management programs as harvest data are used to monitor game populations and inform future regulatory decisions. From these reports, Virginia hunters can also get a sense of which counties have the best populations and generally better hunting.
Whitetail Deer
During the 2024–25 deer hunting season, hunters reported harvesting 205,759 deer in Virginia, down just 0.4% from the 206,586 deer taken during the same time frame the previous season. This year’s total included 101,238 antlered bucks, 665 bucks that had shed their antlers, 13,019 button bucks, and 90,837 does (44.1%).
The youth and apprentice deer-hunting weekend resulted in a harvest of 2,443 deer. Archery hunters took 14% of the total deer harvest while muzzleloading deer hunters and firearms hunters took 24% and 62% of the total harvest, respectively. In counties where dogs could be used to hunt deer, 52% of deer were harvested with the aid of dogs during the general firearms season.
The 2024–25 deer harvest was up approximately 4% from the last ten-year average of 198,398. The increase in percent females harvested, up from 42.5% the previous year, should be beneficial in helping to stabilize or reduce deer herds on private lands where desired. Currently, 51% of the state’s deer management units (counties) are above population objectives, 45% are meeting the current objective, and 4% are below current objective.
Data presented in this summary are preliminary and do not include deer taken during the late urban archery or special late antlerless-only deer seasons.
Wild Turkey
A total of 1,423 wild turkeys were harvested in Virginia during the 2024–25 fall turkey hunting season, just slightly below the 2023–24 season total of 1,443. The top five counties in fall 2024 were Botetourt, Carroll, Bedford, Scott and Augusta.
While Virginia’s turkey population appears to remain robust, fall turkey harvests have been declining for over two decades. A recent DWR survey of turkey hunters indicated that many turkey hunters are choosing to save their turkey tags for the more popular spring turkey season and that they choose to pursue other game during the fall.
One of the largest drivers of fall hunting success is the annual productivity of Virginia’s turkey population. In 2024, the productivity estimate (2.1 poults/hen) was below the long-term average (2.6 poults/hen) for the third year in a row, but slightly up from just 1.89 poults/hen reported in 2023. However, there were significant regional variations this year with the Northern Piedmont and the North Mountain Regions performing above average (2.7 and 2.8 poults/hen, respectively). Since juvenile birds account for 40-60% of the fall harvest, population productivity greatly influences turkey population size and fall harvest.
As in the last several years, the archery harvest remained relatively high, making up approximately 22% of the overall harvest. Thanksgiving Day and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving continue to be popular fall turkey hunting days. This year a total of 400 birds were harvested during that two-day timeframe, accounting for 28% of the total fall harvest. Thanksgiving Day accounted for the single highest day of fall harvest with 266 birds (19%).
The declines in harvest were most apparent West of the Blue Ridge, with a decrease of 6%, as opposed to a slight increase of 3% East of the Blue Ridge. The greatest declines were noted in the Southwest Mountains (-22%) and Southern Piedmont (-21%) regions. The Southwest Mountain region reported significantly lower poult/hen ratios (1.1 poults/hen) which suggests that the lack of reproduction likely affected the harvest in that region. The harvests in the Tidewater and Northern Mountains increased from the previous year (48% and 31%, respectively).
DWR is currently working to revise the turkey management plan. Fall turkey hunting participation is one of the issues that is closely being monitored as this plan is in development. A draft of the management plan should be available for public review in Spring of 2025. For additional details on wild turkey management in Virginia, please visit DWR’s wild turkey web page.
Black Bear
Hunters reported harvesting 2,702 bears during the 2024–25 bear hunting seasons in Virginia. The 2024–25 bear harvest was approximately 6.5% lower than the previous year’s harvest, and 10.6% lower than the previous five-year average during 2019–2023. Female bears composed a lower proportion of the 2024-25 season harvest (38.4%) than the previous year (40.9%).
When compared to 2023, the archery harvest was down slightly (1.1%), while the muzzleloader and general firearms harvests declined by 10.4% and 6.7% respectively. Conversely, the youth/apprentice weekend harvest increased by 19.6% as compared to 2023. Harvest during the three-day early season, which was closed in 26 northwestern counties in 2023, decreased by 31.6% from the previous season in the 16 southwestern counties where it remained open. Reduced access to lands used for bear hunting in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene likely contributed to the lower bear harvest during the three-day season.
The decrease in bear harvest during 2024 is likely the result of multiple factors. A decrease in harvest was expected following a significant increase in harvest the previous season.
Although the magnitude varied regionally, the decrease in bear harvest was observed across all regions of the state, suggesting the influence of a common factor such as variable food abundance or weather. Warm temperatures and dry conditions during the early bear seasons were followed by cold and snow during the later seasons (firearms) which could have led more bears to enter dens earlier, becoming unavailable to hunters.
While the extent of sarcoptic mange impacts on bear populations are still unknown, this is certainly another factor in decreased harvests, particularly in the northern Shenandoah Valley.
Use of the GoOutdoors mobile application continues to gain popularity with the majority (68.1%) of hunters reporting their bear harvest through this method. Telephone reporting made up 21.6% of the harvest while 10.3% of bear hunters reported their harvest using the internet.
Across all seasons in which hounds could be used an estimated 66.8% of bears were taken by hunters using hounds during 2024-25. Preliminary season estimates for the proportion of bears harvested by hunters using hounds were as follows: three-day early firearms season (40.6%), firearms season (68.1%), and youth/apprentice weekend (74.6%).
Virginia continues to provide diverse opportunities for a successful bear hunt. The top five counties to hunt bear in 2024 were Charlotte, Allegheny, Lunenburg, Giles and Bath.
For additional details on big gamemanagement in Virginia please visit the VDWR bear page.
in this summary are only include bears killed during the regulated bear hunting seasons.
For more information visit https://dwr.virginia.gov/blog/bear-deer-turkey-harvest-data/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nftf_hunting_february2025.
