OPERATION DEER : Camp Pendleton Provides Backdrop for One of Best Hunts in Southern California

At first light, the Marines are out.

At his command post atop a hill, Slader Buck receives a report from his second in command, David Boyer: “We’ve got three in Alpha 1, seven in Bravo 2, 10 in Charlie, 10 in Delta . . . “

All sectors are covered.

And the deer are on the run.

Camp Pendleton’s season defines the difference between hunting and finding . Last year, 75% of military hunters got their deer, 39% of civilians--both figures far above the statewide average.

That doesn’t mean the Marines are better shots, although they probably are--just that they were allowed more days to hunt.

It’s run like a military operation, with military jargon. For instance, legal shooting time is posted as 0549, which translates to 5:49 a.m., half an hour before sunrise.

If the Camp Pendleton hunt is the most successful in Southern California, it’s also the most tightly controlled, which is probably no coincidence. Hang around headquarters for a minute and you don’t need to ask, “Who’s in charge around here?”

Slader Buck is in charge.

Slader Buck? C’mon. Is this a dime novel hero or a Marine Corps joke?

Actually--and somebody has to break this to the Pentagon--Slader Buck is a civilian, which is probably the only way he gets away with issuing orders to majors and other brass.

Red-haired, wiry, bearded, fast-talking, quick-thinking and decisive, Buck is the supervisory wildlife biologist in the base’s natural resources office. Boyer is his assistant. They manage the wild game that inhabits the base in northwestern San Diego County.

Pendleton has 17 miles of coastline and covers 198 square miles, with elevations rising from sea level to 2,700 feet. Until this year, the base was part of the state’s D-15 deer zone that blankets parts of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

Now it has its own zone designation--S-10--but only about half is available for hunting, and some sections are shut down periodically for training exercises.

“The primary mission of the base is military training,” Buck acknowledges.

He likes to let everybody know he hasn’t forgotten that.

Right, you think, these are Yewnited States Marines, this is their base and they can shoot anything they want, without others telling them what to do.

Not so.

First, there is the Sikes Act of 1960 that mandates the Department of the Navy to “manage the natural resources of each military reservation . . . to provide the public access that is necessary or appropriate.”

That means that if the Marines can hunt on Pendleton, so can civilians.

But a peacetime military base is not what you’d expect.

Gunnery Sgt. Stan Pederson of the base public-affairs office, said that base personnel can’t even carry handguns outside their housing areas, and rifles are allowed only on shooting ranges and training exercises.

Standing around in their camouflage fatigues, waiting patiently for Buck to assign their hunting areas, they could even pass for civilians . . . if not for their haircuts.

One difference may be attitude. Staff Sgt. Ricky Aley brought in an 81-pound doe and was asked: “Where’s your home?”

“In the Marine Corps,” he replied. “But I’m from Lubbock, Tex.”

The Marines seem to shoot more straight. They get more practice.

But Major Jerry Flotte confessed: “I had two shots today. I choked on one.”

Only about 10% of Pendleton’s hunters are civilians, who must apply to the State Department of Fish and Game for the 100 special-hunt tags to be eligible. Usually, the tags aren’t all taken.

Military personnel includes those active in or retired from any branch of the Armed Forces and their dependents. Whether civilian or military, however, all hunters must adhere to state fish and game laws.

“On top of that, we have a set of base regulations for the hunters’ own safety,” Buck said.

Each hunter must have a California hunting license, which costs $19.25 and means he has taken the state hunter-safety course, then obtain a Camp Pendleton permit for $5 more and submit to a base hunting orientation. All must wear a bright orange vest or cap, and some wear both--oddly, over their camouflage fatigues.

It may be significant that Pendleton, according to Buck, has never had a serious hunting accident.

Hunting is done only on weekends--nine days a year for military, fewer for civilians--and each hunter must start his day with Buck. He records names, ranks and assigned hunting locations, then sees them again at the end of the day to record details of their kills and sightings for his biological data bank.

Buck also oversees 14 military game wardens on the base, through Gunnery Sgt. Mike Murphy, the game warden supervisor.

The arrangement works.

“We have total control and that’s one of the reasons this program is so successful,” Buck said.

Other wildlife biologists, frustrated by the politics of state or federal government bureaucracies, only dream of such control.

There was hunting on the land--previously, Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores--long before it became a military base in 1942. But it improved markedly when Buck took over in ’83.

He is careful to defer to the authority of the DFG and the protocol of the military, but his operation is so thorough and efficient that both agencies routinely rubber-stamp his management plans.

Beyond that, he said: “We play no favorites. A corporal gets just as much cooperation as a major.”

But a civilian may not be quite as privileged as a corporal.

Only military personnel may shoot bucks--80 last year, among the total kill of 153 deer. The civilians must take “antlerless” animals--does or fawns--one per person. Military hunters get two.

And only military personnel get first crack on the opening weekend of rifle season, which was last weekend, after an archery season that started Aug. 5.

However, if military hunters fail to claim all of their allotted spots, Buck gives them to civilians, two of whom took advantage to bag their deer last weekend.

Buck said he has had no complaints from civilians.

“Not one word,” he said. “They’re so thankful for the privilege of hunting on Camp Pendleton that there’s not a problem.”

The Pendleton deer are Southern mule deer, often confused with black-tails because of the black tips on their white tails.

They run small, compared to deer in some other parts of the country. The first kill checked in last weekend was a six-point buck taken by Sgt. Kelly Bemis of Alma, Mich. It weighed 106 pounds, dressed out.

“For Pendleton, an average-size buck,” Buck said.

Bemis said, “A baby, compared to the ones in Michigan.”

The largest among 35 deer taken by 180 hunters last weekend was a 125-pound six-pointer by Major Randall Johnson--not exactly trophy class.

Buck said: “We don’t have the type of vegetation that consistently grows big deer.”

One of the smallest kills was a 41-pound “button buck,” actually, an older, unspotted fawn, which is a legal kill on some private lands and military reservations.

There is a public relations problem with that and even some hunters disapprove but wildlife biologists say most fawns will die from predation or other natural causes in their first year. Even the killing of does is frowned upon in Northern California, where deer are more plentiful.

Buck said, however: “From a biological standpoint, if you’re going to manage the population, it doesn’t make much sense to hunt just one side of it.”

But by controlling the number of hunters and what they can shoot in the various sections of Pendleton, and by avoiding concentrations of guns in preferred areas, Buck virtually controls the kill.

Other control factors are the frequency of burning--much of it caused by training exercises--that restores deer forage, and the lack of cattle grazing on the base. The deer compete only with a herd of 50 bison for food.

Buck can closely watch his deer because they don’t migrate between summer and winter ranges, and his detailed collection of data unavailable to public wildlife management agencies gives him a sharp picture of the herd.

Despite training exercises and ordnance noise all around them, the deer seem to have adapted without suffering from stress. As anywhere else, there are losses from predators--primarily mountain lions--and road kills.

Surprisingly, even poaching is a problem, although less so than on public lands.

“Camp Pendleton has an unsecured boundary,” Buck said. “It is primarily people coming in from outside.”

Buck, too, is from the outside, but nobody seems to mind.

“I’m a civilian wildlife biologist,” he said. “I just happen to work for the Department of Defense.”

He also is vice president of the National Military Fish and Wildlife Assn., and if you accuse him of having the best job of any wildlife biologist around, he doesn’t argue.

“You’re right,” he said.