Why were deer numbers so low pre 1990’s

[andrew bullard]

You hear the stories about it being a huge deal to even lay eyes on a deer “back in the day” but I can’t understand why? I bet habitat was soo much better. First, there was simply more. Development and sprawl have erased millions of acres since then. Agriculturally we are so ridiculously efficient that hardly a kernel of corn is left after harvest. I bet fields were a buffet back then. Also fence row to fence row wasn’t a thing either so all that wonderful edge existed. Hunters would have been so less effective than today as well, theoretically allowing the population to explode. Any of us in decent deer country know that if you do not actively keep the population in check it will explode. So what kept populations artificially low back then or what is keeping them artificially high now?

Meat eater History, the long hunters 1761-1775 is a great audio book explaining how whitetail were nearly wiped off the continent. Summary: there was a huge demand for hides in Europe.

Daniel Boone era commercial hunters exterminated them from eastern settlements and continued to head west until the demand subsided. Americas Declaration of Independence in 1776 had a lot to do with the decrease in demand!


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[Foggy47]

Regarding pheasants and waterfowl and small game.......I grew up in Southern Minnesota......and that is BIG AG country. Back in time (pre 60's) the area I speak of was known as the Prairie Pothole country. It was settled in the mid / late 1800's by farmers who got 160 acres of rich black dirt to farm if they would homestead the land. Almost every farm had lots of pasture land and a few wetlands and woodlots on the property. The farms were very diversified with hogs, chickens, cows, and perhaps about 20 to 40 acres of row crop land.......the balance was pasture and wetlands. This was / is some of the richest farm land in the world.

Back then, a farmer made all his own wood for heat, sold eggs for some cash, trapped fur from the wetlands in winter (foxes, mink, muskrats), killed some pheasants, rabbits, and ducks for food, and maybe a few hunted deer (?)....tho I don't think many owned a rifle to kill them with. Shotguns were king. Most of the farmers were opportunists and did what they could to scratch a decent living. I can remember driving with an uncle at tight and shining jack rabbits with a 22. We may have killed 20 or so on any given night.....they were everywhere. After the 30's there became a bigger market for cash grain sales and crop land was expanded......(along with the railroads and elevators to move the grain)....most of the expansion required a mega ditching program to allow draining those wetland and turning those rich wetlands into row crop land.

Until the 30's or so....the mechanized diggers were not widely available for such things. But with the mechanical revolution......things changed a whole lot over the next few decades. Of course farm expansion happened to the point that most of the profitable farmers in Southern Minnesota are now running a few thousand acres in many cases. Most all the land is now strip tiled and excess water is ditched into the River System and down into the Delta. Sad to say.....I saw much of this occur in my lifetime. Sad to look back at the wildlife Mecca we once had.

I can well remember driving around with my Dad in the 50's (pheasant hunting) and he would point our the old swimming holes and wetland areas where he hunted as a kid. Many were still there.....and many others were tiled out by then. Today, you may drive several miles and not see any of those wetlands or potholes......just ditches. This occurred in what is perhaps 1/3 the land mass of Minnesota.

 

[b116757]

This would very state by state I would guess that the states that where early adopters of what we would consider a modern deer season had higher deer numbers sooner than the late adoption states. Pre a modern deer season I wouldn’t expect deer numbers to be very high as many families would have shot many many deer as just a normal day to day life to put food on the table and the hides shipped to Europe. Wisconsin adopted a deer season in the 1800’s Kansas adopted a modern deer season in 1964 there is quite a difference in time between those two states.

 

[H20fwler]

In my area in the early 70"s it was a novelty to see a deer, I remember getting excited just seeing a deer track while checking my traplines. Lots and lots of ducks around, we had the point system then. Weren't very many canada geese, limit was one a day. We had some pheasant and quail around but after the blizzard of 78 they were done. Many small wood lots were fenced and either had cattle or pigs in them. In the early 80's when I started bow hunting I would see maybe a few deer a season while sitting in my home made tree stands...does were illegal to shoot and any buck was a trophy.

We just started getting turkeys here 20 years ago....now I see ten deer within twenty yards almost every sit.
Not near as many ducks around as we used to see but the geese are everywhere...the state kills the geese every summer here all over the state to thin them down.

With the mega farms there are no more nice fence rows and no more quail/pheasants and not near as many bunnies...but we do have racoons like crazy, coyotes and what seems like plenty of deer and bald eagles....and everyone waterfowl and deer hunts.
We even have beavers and otters here now after we had none for over 100 years.

 

[sandbur]

In my area in the early 70"s it was a novelty to see a deer, I remember getting excited just seeing a deer track while checking my traplines. Lots and lots of ducks around, we had the point system then. Weren't very many canada geese, limit was one a day. We had some pheasant and quail around but after the blizzard of 78 they were done. Many small wood lots were fenced and either had cattle or pigs in them. In the early 80's when I started bow hunting I would see maybe a few deer a season while sitting in my home made tree stands...does were illegal to shoot and any buck was a trophy.

We just started getting turkeys here 20 years ago....now I see ten deer within twenty yards almost every sit.
Not near as many ducks around as we used to see but the geese are everywhere...the state kills the geese every summer here all over the state to thin them down.

With the mega farms there are no more nice fence rows and no more quail/pheasants and not near as many bunnies...but we do have racoons like crazy, coyotes and what seems like plenty of deer and bald eagles....and everyone waterfowl and deer hunts.
We even have beavers and otters here now after we had none for over 100 years.

It’s interesting how things change. As a youth, we had ducks in the wetlands and creeks of north central Minnesota. Then more geese and less ducks. Now it appears as if swans are driving some of the geese out.

Sandhill cranes have become more common.

Where I live, which is further south, we are now seeing more fishers and this summer I see more bears than I like.

Turkeys far out number pheasants. We had no turkeys, 25 years ago.

The only thing that is constant is that it will change!

 

[SwampCat]

My dad lived in NW MO. Was born in 1925. Said it wasnt until he went to calif in the navy during WWII that he saw his first deer. Stories of Lewis and Clark indicated game was very scarce around Indian villages. Even on old Gunsmoke shows, they are hunting antelope - not deer - around Dodge City KS. Dont know if that is an attempt to be historically correct - or if the producer just liked to hunt antelope.

When I lived in GA as a teen in the early 70’s - seems like there was a six or eight week season. We hunted most weekends and would see maybe three or four deer all season. We had just moved there from Rochester, MN, where there was a one weekend season. My dad commented several times about GA - “No wonder there are no deer here, the season is way to long”. Now there is a ten doe bag limit.

In my home state of AR, we have 4 to 7 week MG season with a four or five doe bag limit - if you have a lot of deer on your place - it is in spite of g&f regs - it is because you protect them. If my hunters shot a doe limit each year, there would not be a deer left. We let the grand daughters kill a couple and that is it.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I just find it wild that a small population of people with rudimentary weapons and little technology could actually wipe out a population of deer. Buffalo or something like that get. Deer can hide anywhere and landscape is thick. I think we’d have a hard time wiping out a population in the south today.

I think hunger made people hunt pretty hard back in the old days.

 

[letemgrow]

1941 map of MO.....

I remember the "old timers" talking about the 2 areas in my county that actually had deer in the late 70's to hunt.

 

[Turkish]

1941 map of MO.....

I remember the "old timers" talking about the 2 areas in my county that actually had deer in the late 70's to hunt.

View attachment 69879

I’m guessing the areas that still held deer had the most area that was difficult to access. Is that right? In MS, the spots that were the last to have deer were the hardest to get to. The last wildernesses, so to speak, mostly vast swaths of bottomlands and swamps along the MS River.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Haven't read all the posts but.. If I look at aerials at where my house is and where my land is from 1980s and earlier, there was no cover. Everything was cleared for row crop or grazing. No Cover is no Bueno with MN winters. That in addition to how all the wetlands were destroyed in prime row crop ground as @Foggy47 laid out above. A lot of that marginal ground that was used for small family farmsteads has been left to go back to nature since then. CRP came into existence in 1985. There has been more incentive for land owners to maintain habitat in the last 30-40 years than prior.

 

[356]

Regarding the Missouri map. The old timers in Texas County (that's the big county on the map with 0 deer, but neighbored by Dent county in blue with 700) tell of their families harvesting deer throughout the depression and war era. While the map is clearly incomplete, the progress made in the past 80 years is significant. Last year, 6910 deer were harvested in Texas County alone.

 

[Electrodigical]

Man I dunno, the photos of camp from the late 50's and 60's, my grandfather and his friends had deer hanging like fish on a stringer. We have two photos on the wall that probably have more deer hanging than we've taken in the last 40 years total.

Other places, like where I live, it's just the opposite. I remember the first time I saw a deer at work, I was cutting through the woods and thought I was seeing things. That was maybe 15 years ago. Now they're everywhere, it's an extremely rare day that I don't see them. With the only real threat being automobiles, there's been a population explosion. I've seen up to 40 in a 1 mile drive.

 

[letemgrow]

I’m guessing the areas that still held deer had the most area that was difficult to access. Is that right? In MS, the spots that were the last to have deer were the hardest to get to. The last wildernesses, so to speak, mostly vast swaths of bottomlands and swamps along the MS River.

That map lines up pretty well with the Mark Twain national forest.


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[Turkey Creek]

Things definitely change, or at least our perspective for sure. Back home in south-central Nebraska I can remember seeing herds of 20 deer feeding in picked Ag fields later in the Fall into Winter in the late 80s. Waterfowl migrated through in clouds of birds. We had enough quail and pheasants to make it worth walking the fields at least a few times a year, though the hay days of the 60s and 70s were sliding away. Not much for turkeys and then we had the turkey explosion around 2010. Turkey numbers crashed and now I gather with talking with folks back there that the turkey numbers look pretty good again. Pheasant and quail are pretty much non existent and deer numbers are possibly at an all time low since I was born. I haven't been in KS that many years but I have seen the turkey numbers tank and I would say that deer numbers aren't as strong as a lot of the celebrities on tv lead you to believe.

 

[KY wild]

Electro's example of deer hanging like fish I am sure was true all over the nation and hunters wiped them out. In Ky hunters also wiped out elk, wolves, mountain lions, bobcats, Bisons and I am sure numerous other species, of course we have reintroduced some of the animals that we want back. Makes the species that have been hunted for decades and survived even more impressive like the coyote, I had 3 pics sent to me this weekend of dead yotes while friends muzzle load hunted for deer. Seems everyone tries to wipe out coyotes yet they are a plentiful

 

[Tree Spud]

You hear the stories about it being a huge deal to even lay eyes on a deer “back in the day” but I can’t understand why? I bet habitat was soo much better. First, there was simply more. Development and sprawl have erased millions of acres since then. Agriculturally we are so ridiculously efficient that hardly a kernel of corn is left after harvest. I bet fields were a buffet back then. Also fence row to fence row wasn’t a thing either so all that wonderful edge existed. Hunters would have been so less effective than today as well, theoretically allowing the population to explode. Any of us in decent deer country know that if you do not actively keep the population in check it will explode. So what kept populations artificially low back then or what is keeping them artificially high now?

Deer numbers in Wisconsin were definitely not low. Yes, there are pockets in the state where they are low like the far north (predation, mature growth forests, etc.). Our DNR was pushing hard for herd reduction and killing of more does. A lot of battles back then as there was an old school mindset that you "DON'T" shoot a doe.

The old school types thought if you shoot a doe, you would destroy the herd because doe's gave us fawns. So there was a heavy focus on buck only hunting. A 110 lbs spike was far better than than 165 lbs doe. These intellectually challenged folks failed to understand that doe's could not self impregnate.

The doe population was high and the DNR could not get hunters to shoot one so they launched the Earn-a-buck program (greatest deer mgmt program in my opinion) where you had to shoot a doe 1st to earn a buck tag. My unit has a deer density of 58 dpsm. The EAB program was cancelled and the DNR now hands out doe tags like candy.

When I buy my gun & bow license, I get 8 doe tags. What in the hell I am going to do with shooting 10 deer?

 

[Bill Loser]

Deer numbers in Wisconsin were definitely not low. Yes, there are pockets in the state where they are low like the far north (predation, mature growth forests, etc.). Our DNR was pushing hard for herd reduction and killing of more does. A lot of battles back then as there was an old school mindset that you "DON'T" shoot a doe.

The old school types thought if you shoot a doe, you would destroy the herd because doe's gave us fawns. So there was a heavy focus on buck only hunting. A 110 lbs spike was far better than than 165 lbs doe. These intellectually challenged folks failed to understand that doe's could not self impregnate.

The doe population was high and the DNR could not get hunters to shoot one so they launched the Earn-a-buck program (greatest deer mgmt program in my opinion) where you had to shoot a doe 1st to earn a buck tag. My unit has a deer density of 58 dpsm. The EAB program was cancelled and the DNR now hands out doe tags like candy.

When I buy my gun & bow license, I get 8 doe tags. What in the hell I am going to do with shooting 10 deer?

Earn a buck was good, but only for those who didn't need 15 buck tags...

 

[Foggy47]

Deer numbers in Wisconsin were definitely not low. Yes, there are pockets in the state where they are low like the far north (predation, mature growth forests, etc.). Our DNR was pushing hard for herd reduction and killing of more does. A lot of battles back then as there was an old school mindset that you "DON'T" shoot a doe.

The old school types thought if you shoot a doe, you would destroy the herd because doe's gave us fawns. So there was a heavy focus on buck only hunting. A 110 lbs spike was far better than than 165 lbs doe. These intellectually challenged folks failed to understand that doe's could not self impregnate.

The doe population was high and the DNR could not get hunters to shoot one so they launched the Earn-a-buck program (greatest deer mgmt program in my opinion) where you had to shoot a doe 1st to earn a buck tag. My unit has a deer density of 58 dpsm. The EAB program was cancelled and the DNR now hands out doe tags like candy.

When I buy my gun & bow license, I get 8 doe tags. What in the hell I am going to do with shooting 10 deer?

Realistically, How many hunters will kill 10 deer each year? I am guessing that number is fairly low.

 

[Bill Loser]

Realistically, How many hunters will kill 10 deer each year? I am guessing that number is fairly low.

Around me, it's very realistic. My front neighbor, whom I am learning to not like very much last season,or the season before killed 6 in 1 day and never slowed down after that. I finally made a comment to him about how at some point there has to be enough and he quit. I'm all for shooting whatever makes you happy, but a little self restraint is also necessary.

 

[Tree Spud]

Earn a buck was good, but only for those who didn't need 15 buck tags...

Not sure if you recall, but you didn't get a buck tag for every doe you shot. You had to shoot at least 1 doe to validate your buck tag, still only 1 buck per weapon.