Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Do you think the government is killing off the deer

Yep, and Blue Tongue. I don’t know if that’s the same thing as CWD? What ever BT is, I guess it really hit parts of ND and Montana bad.

EHD (Enzootic Hemorrhagic Disease) periodically thins the population here. Road kill and predators are a constant.

I don't think the "government" has anything to do with it

New York has about 22 deer per square mile. But actually it’s probably a lot higher than that because so much of the state is heavily urbanized and the deer will be more concentrated in those areas that aren’t. If there are any noticeable drops in deer population from year-to-year it probably has more to do with disease and weather than anything else.

I have to agree about the deer numbers at least here in CNY. I used to see tons on my drives here and there, but now it is rare to see 2 or 3. This past season I only saw 3 deer all season in an area that I usually saw 20+. Several buddies also had a dismal season, with only limited deer. I know that Doe permits have been way too available for years but not really sure why the downturn.

Coyotes, Hogs, Poachers,.automobiles,liberal doe tags and poorly managed habitat on state land are the reason.

In SE Wisconsin, there are a lot less deer than 10 yrs ago. However, it is mostly cause they give out so many doe tags. On public land I get 3 doe tags for bow and three for gun. I can use all of them for bow , or gun or a mix. There were a lot of coyotes the last few years too . However , I took a 2 mile walk on the public land marsh yesterday and only came across one coyote track. There are a LOT of deer dead on the road and I am sure the hwy that goes along the public land gets more deer kills than hunters. I was surprised and how many deer are in the marsh this year. Why are there more now? Mostly cause the marsh does not have much water in it this year and there is tall grass and cattails all over for them to bed down and just enough green gras left for them to scrounge. Other years deer would not be there cause of so much water and spots where ya can break through the ice. If that happens when coyotes are chasin deer the deer are stuck and easy prey. As for this year, I dont know where the coyotes went, hopefully they died of mange, there were so many tracks last year and I still could not call one in. I went through New York form Ohio to Alexandria Bay back down to Utica , then up through Speculator and Old Forge. I didnt see much for deer over July 4th week. Did see some in the Daks, but they seemed close to camp sights and towns.

I know in Fayetteville NY, they had bait stations and sharp shooters take down a huge number of deer. They were doing it because of:
1. Deer car collision
2. Deer browse on landscapes
3. Most importantly from what I heard is to help reduce the tick population

The tick population here is incredible. Walk through the woods and expect to pick at least 20 ticks off your pants.

The lack of deer sighting truly reflects how successful(I use that term loosely) they were in reducing the population.

Used to be I could guarantee I would get a deer in my hunting spot. Now, I'm happy to see one.

It's a cycle in nature and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. There's always going to be peaks and valleys in nature, same as the weather.

Ticks? You guys need some fire ants. Most years I don’t even get a tick the entire year. They’re still there, you see them on deer, but there aren’t nearly as many of them as there used to be.

That is mean.

Insurance companies pay the states a LOT of money to influence the protection and limited hunting/trapping abilities of predators. Coyote populations have to be reduced by 75% each year to maintain a stable population.

SC fish and game put out a camera by a coyote den one Spring. A single pair of Coyotes brought 22 dead fawns to the den for the pups to eat. You do the math.

plus a top biologist told me that dear also die from coronavirus

I wouldn't call New York "heavily urabanized". The State is 62.88% forested, which puts it at # 12 in the nation for percentage of forested land.

we use to go to NY deer hunting back in the 80's and 90's

I took a drive through Delaware County right after the snow had melted off the fields last spring. From Franklin through Treadwell and on down to Delhi there were herds of deer ranging in size from just a handfull up to 80-100 out feeding in every field. Never saw so many deer in a 24 mile stretch in my life.

I drove from the NC mountains down to Atlanta for Christmas. I saw more road kill deer on that trip than ever before. There is a bigger deer herd in N Ga than ever before.

It wasn't the government, predators or screwed up game management here.

EHD killed 90-95% of the whitetails in some areas last summer/fall. Now we have CWD.

I don't think most DNR agencies are killing deer, but they're not doing them any favors.

You should see the mule deer decline in the west. Its enraging. Still killing does, and still offering the 4th season buck tags which focuses on mature bucks. Our state decided the chronic wasting myth is a real concern, so their attitude is to kill them before the disease could.

At the end of the day, hunters kill more deer than other predators, so maybe us hunters should blame ourselves.

In northern Calif it's not a plot or conspiracy, it's just bad decisions, one after another. The great migratory herds are gone, Dept of F&G doesn't listen to their own biologists. Increased traffic and the speed of traffic, the ban on mountain lion hunting, the ban on dogs for bear hunting, (the bear and mountain lion population has exploded) the huge loss of winter habitat to property development, and now when the deer populations are teetering toward unsustainable, the fools decide to protect wolves. Deer populations have always been cyclical, but now there are so many predators at the top of the food chain, the great herds of the past 40 years will never return to historic numbers.

Bingo.