transcript  Reporting your deer at a check station

Hi I'm Martin Feehan. I am the MassWildlife deer and moose project leader and I oversee the deer management across Massachusetts. Every year during shotgun season hunters have to bring in their deer to a physical check station so that way we collect valuable biological data that allows us to track the health of the herd and the deer abundance across the state. For each individual deer we take their weight. We also use their teeth to be able to age them. With the teeth there's specific patterns of wear that you can use to age from when they're a fawn through when they're a few years old and then we can actually use the wear as they grind down their teeth from food to see how they old they are as they get older. We also for bucks we use calibers to measure the diameter of their antler beam and that allows us uh to track the difference in health for the bucks across the state. It's important for hunters to remember that you have to check in your deer within 48 hours after you’ve harvested a deer and this is all season long. Throughout the rest of the season you can do that online but during the biocheck week you have to make sure that you bring it into a physical station.