I don't know about where you live but in NY it seems our deer population as taken a huge hit. At least in my eyes, driving from Albany to NYC, or Buffalo and Pennsylvania it wasn't uncommon for you to see well over 50 on a trip not to mention quite a few dead ones. Lately I am lucky to see a handful and that includes dead ones. I know in counties near NYC they are blaming a virus carried by a fly. After Corona I put nothing past our government including wiping out the deer heards.

Coyotes are taking a big toll in Ohio. I'm not seeing nearly as many deer on the property that I hunt in Southern Ohio. Seeing and hearing more coyotes than ever.

Ron

Cars kill more deer than anything.

I absolutely agree about lack of deer in NY. My buddy and I have been talking about this extensively. Even the town Clerk commented on it because my nephew came up to hunt and bought his license the day before firearm season opened. He got his buck tag and they gave him two doe permits as well. the day before the opener!. Seeing very few deer between Syracuse and Binghamton on 81 and the same for Binghamton to Middletown on rt 17....or 86, whatever the state calls it now.

New York does not manage the deer herd for hunters, they manage it for insurance companies. I doubt anyone travels to New York for deer hunting. If you want to see really dismal hunting, try the Adirondacks!

How do you think the government is killing them and for what reason do you think the government are killing all the deer?

I have not seen a legal buck on public land during the season, for 7 years. Phuc those antler restrictions.

It seems like a lot of deer are dying of mysterious parasites and diseases. I probably wouldn't have thought to much about it until Coronavirus. I would not be shocked to see deer being infected with something to control the population. I know they found a couple islands in the Hudson river with a lot of dead deer including one with 60 dead deer

I do, it used to be if I wanted to hunt I would go to the Adirondacks, if I want deer I would go down south to the Catskills

DNR is in cahoots with the Car insurance companies, as always follow the money.

Is Bidens cabal buds going to push a supply chain food shortage?

I dont put anything past them.

Isnt Klaus Schwab and the WEF pushing eating bugs, like they are in the socialist repuboic of Venezuela?

NYS gives doe permits to any land owner with over 50 acres. They hand out nuisance permits to farmers to basically kill as many deer as possible to limit crop damage. That’s not the way to manage wildlife. I don’t care how many game animals there are, they should never be treated as a nuisance, they are a valuable natural resource.

I agree a hundred 💯, I guess things haven't changed much considering what was done to the Buffalo

Here in Washington we prohibited bait and hounds for predators....then introduced wolves....then added AWFUL fish and wildlife practices related to the seasons and habitat.

That's how they're involved here.

Ps, I live on what was once the most prolific whitetail deer area. 15 years ago we were thinning them to reduce stress on the mule deer.

I haven't seen one in two years in my entire county.

Whatever their reason, it ISN'T the hunter.

I believe the people give the government a lot more credit on stuff they are just not bureaucraticly ( is that a word?) capable of.

In other word, more credit than they are due.

They basically have no issues continually phuqing up schidt sandwiches without even trying all that hard.

Cars, yotes, and CWD all have taken a toll.

Great, another Kook-konspiracy for the kooks to kook over...

Tin foil helmet time...

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.

Beat me to it. I was going to say not intentionally but though negligence. The state will only hire biologists that tell them what they want to hear. There isn't a single sportsman on the DFG commission. It was very prominent in the hunting community when he resigned. The biggest bad decision is the way fire is managed. Millions of acres of watershed and habit lost.
Property development bothers me more than anything. We are so stressed for resources but for some reason the state lets housing go on like there's no problem. Another follow the money scenario.

Seems some guys here have their heads buried in the sand. Imagine your financial condition if you managed your dollars like Fish and Game manages tags. An example of what our government did here.

In 1979 we had huge mule deer bucks here in Oregon. We used to go out in the evening and counted on average 100 deer, 40 of which were bucks, and 5-8 would be really big bucks, we're talking 30-36" wide bucks. Fish and Game decided to manage the unit for quantity, not quality, hunter "opportunity", not sound game management. They offered 5000 buck tags in that one unit, every year, over the counter. Then one bad winter wiped out a bunch, and fish and game just kept selling those tags. Within 10 short years the deer were gone, never to return.

Fast forward to today. Bear and hound hunting illegal with dogs. Reintroduce wolves while concealing the real numbers from the public.

Why is it a bunch of guys that can agree the government is trying to consolidate the population in cities, put us in camps, or kill us all with bio=weapons they funded and developed, can't see the logic of reintroducing wolves to decimate game herds?

The better question is, why doesn't that make sense?

I believe this to be true in our little corner of Iowa also. Didn't see near as many deer this fall whilst harvesting, maybe 2?

Seriously doubt the gubment has anything to do with it.

Deer being red blooded conservative types have packed up and moved South to escape the Blue!

Pretty much. lol

EHD killed off 80-90% of the deer in some counties in 2011 statewide average was ~60%. Drought mostly caused it. The gnat that spreads it thrives in mud. Waterholes start drying up which concentrates the deer to the few remaining where the gnats are. By the way it hit here again this last year.

We have record numbers of whitetail here on the Missouri river bottom.

Last fall I was practically begging the local guys to shoot does.


Last 2-3 weeks we had a cold snap and the deer started moving into my parent's yard. Chewed the hell out of everything.

Last week a placed a really nice round bales in an area close to the house in an attempt to keep the deer away.

Hay stack damage like never before and it's only January.

Young deer will feed in broad daylight 20 yards away from my dad when he is loading silage and chopped hay.



These deer are a major problem.

Areas of the state are a lot more heavily urbanized than most. And of course, woods aren’t necessarily good deer habitat anyway.

I hunt both NY and PA every year for 45 yrs . I can tell you in my experience populations in both states are way down. I still managed to harvest a deer every year but it has been my observation during these hunts less deer are seen. Both states have drastically increased harvest opportunities with new and lengthened seasons. Pressure from insurance company lobbyists has put pressure on legislators to push for this. Also predation has taken its share on overall numbers. Hunters also have more tools at their disposal (gps, trail cams, better weapons ect. ) that allows better penetration and increased duration of time hunters spend in woods. Also let’s not forget the reality that state agency’s that manage deer populations also have large expenses that need revenue. More license sales in particular doe permits equal revenue. Heards are not manage for hunters they are foremost manage for Forest Health, heard health ,farmer crop damage, vehicle deer collisions reductions and revenue. Hunter satisfaction does not fit in with these objectives but we are merely a tool to obtain goal objectives. I you think deer density for hunter satisfaction is an objective you would be mistaken.

The best thing hunters can do I these two states is be thoughtful and not over harvest . Just because doe permits are available does not mean you should clear out a heard of deer in any given area. I see it happen all the time over the last 10-20 yrs . A group of guys will over hunt an are till the deer population is null one year come back the next year and complain they see no deer. Deer do not drop from the sky and repopulate overnight. It takes years for a decimated heard to repopulate.

Lots of hunters don’t want to here this. They figure if doe permits are issued than it’s a green light to be a glutton . Do not rely on government agency harvest goals to determine how many deer are acceptable to harvest in your area. If you see deer population dwindling in your area than back off and don’t take multiple deer in a single year. We have to manage the herds in the areas we hunt ourselves.

Lots of good deer habitat in New York. Central NY covered in farmland. Lots of deer in suburban areas too. The heavily forested wilderness areas of the Adirondacks and Catskills will always be low deer density due to being poor habitat. As a percentage of the total land area of the State, the urban areas aren't much. In fact at 8.7%, the percentage of land area that is urbanized in NY is not far from Georgia at 8.3% and is far less than.

NJ 39.4%
Mass. 38.4%
Conn. 37.7%
Del. 20.8%
Md. 20.5%
Fl. 13.7%

And even less than some you might not suspect like.

Pa. 10.5%
NC. 9.5%
Oh. 10.8%

Cept the MN Timber Wolf.

In the early 2000's I started hunting in Perry county Ohio. I don't think I could go out on any day, no matter the weather, and not see deer. Now I've gone entire seasons without seeing any. Believe it or not I have heard coyotes running in the hollow bottoms chasing deer in the middle of the day.

Let me address Kentucky as an example. For the past 20+ years, KY has had a Zone system where the number of deer, specifically antlerless deer are managed. Zone 1, where I am has an unlimited yearly bag limit on doe. The least liberal Zone 4, has a limit on doe and a reduced season.

KYDFWR has stated they want to bring all ZONE 1 counties into line with ZONE 2 counties as far as deer populations are concerned. In fact, they want to manage all zones 1-4 so that they comport with ZONE 2. Right now, ZONE 1 has deer EVERYWHERE. ZONE 2 has a 4 deer limit.

This year's overall harvest was well off record levels. In fact you have to go back about a decade to see them this low. Our ZONE 1 county was similarly affected. My guess is the KYDFWR is starting to put a hurt on ZONE 1. We'll see. However, I think it'll be a while before we see another record season.

100 % agreement. The Deer herd is under enough pressure from predators, automobiles, disease and poaching.

Deer populations seem to go from hard to get a shot to they’re everywhere’s !
I hunt a couple different areas , some will be plentiful a couple years and then boom !
You have to work for them .
20-30 miles one direction or the other and it’ll be the opposite .
Poachers and coyotes are a big factor in some areas , seems in some places poachers are absolutely brazen .
The population of people are eat up with bums that don’t work and they sleep all day and prowl at night on their four wheelers . Fuggers will pop a wheelie and smash a barbed wire fence right to the ground .
One place I had permission to hunt on the idiots drove into my buddies property and when they rounded the corner and realized there was a house there , tried to turn around real quick and got stuck on a stump , then had thd nerve to knock on the door and ask for help .
Law was called and as usual nothing done , they eventually shot a buck I was hunting from the road .
Then a few weeks later driving intoxicated crashed into a girl and fugged her up bad , should have been in jail , shiet wouldn’t have happened.
Kenneth

A co-worker shot a coyote (legal) several years ago that had an ear tag. He called the DNR and reported he had shot it and gave the tag number. The person he spoke to told him the DNR doesn't tag coyotes and gave him a phone number. He called and the person he spoke to was in Texas and live trapped coyotes and sold them to insurance companies. He even gave the company he had sold the coyote to. BTW, it's illegal to bring animals into WV and turn them loose.

Around here is is a multitude of predators including bears,bobcats,wolves ,yotes and f u c k ing poachers.Probably poachers kill more than the other vermin.There are two Wardens for our whole County.All fall you hear single shots just at dusk.

Plenty of hunters here; no need for the govt to get involved.

What insurance company was it? Sounds like a good 60 minutes episode before they went flamer.

.....always believed that was the reason for wolf reintroduction's.
No game, no hunters ? etc.......

In Pa where I hunt we had a outbreak of EHD that hit our deer hard . The numbers where almost non existent in some areas. Yet the Game commission continued to issue a large amount of doe permits in that area even though the density was almost non existent. Hunters still mange to harvest what deer they could. Now they complain that they don’t see deer in that area. The agency should have backed of its allotments for a couple years to allow some repopulation . They did not . Which leads me to believe the management goal of this area was to nearly wipe out the heard . In this same area coyote numbers have grown out of control. Even though EHD has not reoccurred the deer have no chance . The hunter satisfaction is not even a consideration in this particular area. Hunter in this area are being used as a tool to eliminate the population.

Do you think the government is killing off the deer?

Yes.

😂

I have read this thread through from the beginning. I have to say, it's given me more laughs than anything else recently. It was a tough decision, but the awards are as follows:

Most ridiculous post: This has to be a tie, with equal honors going out to Keith and DaveinWVa for the insurance company conspiracy angle.

Just for the record, boys, the insurance companies don't give a damn how many deer get hit by cars. It's not like they have some finite pool of money to pay out. The more they pay out, the more they charge and instances where people have to collect on their insurance only serves to further stimulate their customer base to buy more product. They employ actuaries to figure this schitt out and they raise their rates to cover their risks, and they are not concerned with the short term, they are in it for the long term.

Most intelligent post: Here we have a three-way tie among Jorge, EdM and Blackheart.

I think they all moved South and are trying to turn the beautiful South into a craphole for deer like they did in NY!!

I would like to see a copy of the report, on the den feeding. Interesting studies like that have been intriguing to me.

It's fools with a gun, they will shoot critters and leave them lay, then brag about killing a deer.
I have listened to it, they had used a SKS and killed two

" Just for the record, boys, the insurance companies don't give a damn how many deer get hit by cars. It's not like they have some finite pool of money to pay out. The more they pay out, the more they charge and instances where people have to collect on their insurance only serves to further stimulate their customer base to buy more product. They employ actuaries to figure this schitt out and they raise their rates to cover their risks, and they are not concerned with the short term, they are in it for the long term."

Not in Georgia. I was a paramedic in central Georgia. Deer hunter falls from a tree, we worked with Game and Fish. Person injured in boat crash on Lake Sinclair, we worked it with Game and Fish. I was buddies with our two game wardens and I knew them on a first name basis. They told me that deer/car wrecks drove the insurance companies nuts. Game wardens told me that every year, State Farm and Prudential had lobbyists down at the state capitol, trying to get the legislature to expand the hunting season.

Furthermore, I worked some deer/car wrecks where there were terrible injuries. Not from the deer, but from the car swerving and hitting the oak tree. Worked one deer/car wreck where a 24 year old man got a broken back and was paralyzed from the waist down.. State Farm shelled out a couple hundred grand on medical expenses on that one, shelled out until the policy ran dry.

I was an avid deer hunter and I discussed this at length with my Game and Fish warden buddies, in fact they told me that the insurance companies would be happy if the deer herd were eradicated.

Really? In Oregon insurance companies lobbied for motorcycle helmet laws to cut down on the number of bikers they had to keep on life support for life. Also lobbied for seat belt laws for the same reason. Why is it hard to understand an insurance company would actively seek ways to cut liabilities? It's what they do for a living after all.

Insurance Co's hate paying claims that's why they argue and make it generally a pain, they like collecting that income without expenditures!!!

Blair County Pa PGC employed sharp shooters showed up,
dumping piles of corn and asking people for access to their property.
They wanted to kill their way out of CWD.



The community said "Hell No!".
And after a couple weeks of fighting they put their tails between their legs
and left. It's my understanding that they got away with it in some other
places.


Statewide, they have seriously reduced the herd over the last 20 years.
The reason posed was herd health and the environment. With bigger
bucks as a supposed secondary benefit.
Farmers still bitch about deer damage, I never saw browse lines here, and haven't seen any change in the forrest since the depopulation.

We have seen an increase in the size of bucks, our antlers run thin and
we aren't likely to ever be a destination hunting state.

Thank you.

The hunters killing the deer is the only thing we can control.

A high number of kills are not being reported. Electronic reporting made that possible. Shoot, skin and freeze.
Easy to do now with silent death crossbow over corn pile from a bedroom window.
Lot of bored folks were sittin' at home last couple of years.
Add in the depredation permits, and wham.

I think way more are getting killed than the numbers show. That's the impact.

Yea, another of Dr. Fauci's secret Wuhan lab viruses are killing deer everywhere by the millions.

in PA i think the PAGC is getting what they wanted. almost unlimited doe licenses, deer population on state owned land waaay down and average antler size increased. this is allowing the forest to repopulate after their massive logging operations, unlike 30 years ago. when they logged my mountain in the mid-80s, it regenerated in garbage trees. still looks like schit. lots of birch, silver maple and brush. 30 years ago i would see herds of 50 deer. in the past 20 years since they went wild with the doe licenses, i'm lucky to see 2 or 3 deer a day in the same area and now the recently logged areas are coming back with oak, etc. the unforeseen issue of CWD is taking its toll in the south central part of the state as are coyotes. every pile of coyote schit i see is loaded with deer hair.

as for myself, i would prefer to go back to the old days, but i know its not going to happen.

now as for private property, i see waaaay more deer on there. so all in all, the hunting for joe sixpack like me has really declined.

and no i don't believe any or that insurance company coyote stocking stuff. insurance companies are going to make money no matter what.

I'll take this one:

The government is killing off all the deer to make it impossible to be self sufficient and live off the land. Next thing on their list is to outlaw all the parts need to make a trot line. Then it's on to a tomato seed wipeout and a ban on homemade wine. This is all so a bunch of guys who eat Arbys on most days and are so out of shape they can't walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath, can flip a switch when the boogaloo kicks off and start living like that Red Dawn movie they watched while eating a TV dinner.

As far as how, radio waves from drones making the deer sterile. That and chemtrails, obviously.

Maybe, but if the government IS behind it, this is the explanation I'd go with:



Creating dependency is what .gov does best. Twenty years ago, I'd have laughed at the notion; but now, it doesn't seem all that far-fetched.

Yeah, probably.

I do not buy into the insurance companies are releasing coyotes theory either. I do believe that coyotes are effecting the heard size however.

There are more deer than people in Alabama. Fact.

Article has some insight .
https://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2013/10/dirty-politics-deer-management/

I think it is several things. Coyotes do take a lot of fawns. CWD is taking some too. Less people are hunting and not moving deer like they used to do. Agricultural practices have changed affecting their food supply.

With my tin foil hat on I will say an unidentified predator is making dents in the population

Damn, you folks got hit again.

When I was up there 2010-2017 I was told about the big herds of whitetail that used to exist, then disease got them. They seemed to be on the way back when I left.

Sure glad it didn't get that dandy buck wageslave got.

I hunted in four different New York Counties this past season. Killed two bucks and four does. Saw deer and plenty of sign everywhere I went and I wouldn't say I hunted very hard. In fact, most everybody in my immediate circle of family and friends that I hunt with had a pretty good season too. My 13 year old nephew killed a real nice 8 point that is presently at the taxidermist. My son in law got a nice 8. My best friends 13 year old granddaughter killed a forkhorn {her first buck} and a doe and my brothers brother in law killed a slammer of an 8 point that is also at the taxidermist. My freezer is full of venison, I have a piebald doe hide at the taxi waiting to be tanned and everybody's happy.

Public or private land? Not trying to start anything, just curious.

Interesting article from 2014. Lists a lot of things that are still going on.

Re: the issuance of "too many antlerless permits"? I guess folks could just choose not to avail themselves of those and not shoot any does/youngsters for a couple of seasons and see if populations rebound to levels they approve of.

Both.

I know the secret predator is the chupacabra, they've been breeding them by the thousands in Mexico and sneaking them across the border with the illegals.

Like flies around HORSESHIT, KOOKS never disappoint. I'm loving the insurance company angle....

Don`t hang around horseshit.

But it's fun to set it on fire and watch the flies burn up in the air like a shot up jap Kamikaze ....

I noticed a drop in deer population this year,but,it could just be the natural cycle of things.Around here ,Westchester/Putnam counties,
Seems to run in a 10 year cycle.When i started hunting in the early 1980's there was nothing,not even small game,it was barren.
Early 1990's,it was booming,by 2003,it was bust again,2013,back up,and now this year,busted again.

No I don't think the Government is, but something is. At least in PA. I've never seen it this bad in my life

Found some dead deer this summer near creeks. CPO said probably EHD. Still can drive around the block and see dozens on fairly routine basis.

Aliens

There are gazillions of deer.

Sheesh.

Yeah definitely the government.

Govt has been killing off Citizens and the deer for many years, actually. Taking in legal and illegal aliens who have nothing, so nothing to lose, if caught poaching or trespass hunting with 22 mag or 222s.

Thing is, they are equal opportunity poachers who kill any deer with hair. All year long.

Expect ranchers to start finding cattle missing backstraps if the supply chain shortage causes much meat shortage.

Same thing here, between the Wolves and killing all the Whitetail doe's, there are no Whitetails. It isn't helping the Mule deer either, it is just another stupid idea following another dumb idea.

All the state you mentioned are what I would consider pretty highly urbanized.

Consider it what you want. The fact remains that NY State is over 91% rural/semi rural/farm land or wilderness and outside of those urban and wilderness areas the deer population ranges from fair to good to well over capacity. You are correct that in some parts of the State winter kill can have a big effect on the deer population.

I don’t have to consider it much at all. It’s 4th in total population and 7th in population density.

Either my fiend lied or it's factual. I know the man so I give him my trust in this.

And the majority of that population is centered in the NYC metropolitan area. On the flip side Hamilton County, the largest in the State, has the lowest human population density of any county East of the Mississippi. Neither has much to do with the deer population and whether or not the Govt. is suppressing it.

Actually, Hamilton County is 3rd biggest. St. Lawrence County is biggest by far but, that aside, yes, these people who think NYS is all city or “heavily urbanized “ need to look north of the thruway. It’s a whole different world.

Been that way for to long. Then they don't want us feeding them in the winter and let the weaker and the ones run ragged through hunting season die. A few 1000 pound round bales of alfalfa or soybean helps many of them. 20 years ago I was feeding 80-100 every year and when the number started dropping it dropped fast, down to only about 10 now. Another big killer is the nuisance permits and doe tags.

Game Warden friend called me this morning... he is issuing a kill permit for 25 deer on a small 200-300 acre farm nearby... wanted to know if I could bring my quiet stuff... we will be killing at night and there are neighbors we will hopefully not disturb.

I see no shortage of deer.

Shortage of acorns in 2021 yes... but shortage of deer... none to my awareness.

The government can’t make anyone pull the trigger on deer!

I don't know what happened but there certainly wasn't many deer in my area this year. That includes big woods and farmland. I border 800 acres of state land. One evening last summer, I watched a small twin engine prop plane flying low along my southern border. About every 100 yds. it was dumping a cloud of something and I don't believe that it was fuel. Didn't think of getting a photo at the time, but was thinking "That's my land".