What Too Many Deer Means

Frequent deer sightings in our neighborhoods might be a sign of too many deer if they've depleted their food sources in the woods. (Photo courtesy of Steve Sorensen.)

One of the biggest debates among hunters is whether or not we have enough deer. Hunters seldom say we have too many deer, but quantity is always a relative thing.

Too many deer might mean fewer songbirds because deer will eat the shrubbery that serves as songbird nesting habitat. Too many deer often means smaller deer because deer can eat themselves out of house and home. They can stunt their own growth.

When the population of deer is at the right level, they get enough to eat and so do other animals. The adequate diet means they will fulfill their growth potential both in body and in antler development. It's hard to understand why more of a good thing might not be a good thing. Deer are certainly a good thing, but too many is not good for deer, for hunters, or for deer habitat.

Steve Sorensen's bi-weekly newspaper column, "The Everyday Hunter," appears in the Forest County News Journal (Tionesta, PA), the Corry Journal (Corry, PA), both part of the Sample News Group. Also the Warren Times Observer (Warren, PA), and the Jamestown Post-Journal (Jamestown, NY), both Ogden Newspapers. If you'd like to see "The Everyday Hunter" in your local newspaper, have your editor contact me.

Scroll down to read "What Too Many Deer Means" (First published on January 25, 2025.)

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To access more of Steve's writing on hunting topics, go to the home page of his blog, Mission: Hunter.

What Too Many Deer Means   

Steve Sorensen

At this time of year—after deer seasons are over and before the birth of fawns in the spring—the deer population should be at its lowest of the year. During deer season we sometimes wonder if the deer population is high enough, but now is the time of year we should be asking, is the deer population low enough?

On the night of January 10, it was cold, snowy, and the roads were anything but midnight clear. I was headed home from my brother’s house in Clymer, NY after watching the Ohio State versus Texas college football game. I drove south on Route 15 (Spencer Road) and then east on Route 957 to Russell, PA.

I wasn’t far from Clymer when my headlights lit up a deer. Its indecision was obvious. This way? That way? Which way? The deep treads on my brand-new tires had a good grip on the unplowed road, so I was never in danger of hitting the big doe, and she finally ambled away.

A quarter mile down the road, fresh imprints told me many deer had crossed. I glanced at the field on my left and saw about 30 deer silhouetted against the bright white snow. A little slower pace might be wise in case more deer were ready to pour out of the woods on my right.

By the time I reached Corry, PA I had seen more singles, pairs and half-dozens. A mile or two east of Corry, several were feeding close to the road. The closest was a buck, I thought, and my headlights confirmed that impression when I saw his left antler was missing.

The rest of the way, eye-shine or moving shadows were often visible at the limits of my headlights. And I saw an abundance of tracks crossing the road, especially where one side or the other was wooded. Seldom have I seen so many deer that late at night and while snow was falling. And there had to be many more deer either too far away to see or standing inside the many wooded areas.

What do all these deer mean? It’s not conclusive proof, but it’s certainly evidence that we have too many deer for a hard winter. That’s not a concern just for hunters. Too many deer impact non-hunters, too. It’s not only bad for the deer themselves, it’s also bad for other wildlife.

This winter could be a hard one for wildlife. With seasonal food scarcity, too many deer sharing too little food means deer will go hungry. Does will be undernourished at a time when their fetuses are rapidly developing, and underweight when their fawns are born. Some will probably starve, especially if we get an ice storm. The harder the winter the more malnutrition.

Come summer, crops will mature at the same time mothers will be recovering from nursing their fawns. And fawns will be transitioning from milk to vegetation. Crops are financial investments. To farmers, all those deer are feeding on cash.

Homeowners will also suffer loss throughout the winter and into the spring as deer feed on expensive yard habitat. The 2.1 million annual deer/car collisions result in $10 billion in property damage and about 440 human deaths across the nation. Since only about 6% of Americans are hunters, most of those victims are non-hunters. Do we want higher insurance rates to offset what companies pay for our repairs? Do we want more people to die?

Even with plenty of deer, we hear complaints from some hunters that they don’t see enough deer. It may be true that deer aren’t plentiful in some areas where hunters had good success years ago, but habitat is constantly changing. Many deer are now living in places where too few hunters go. And too few deer are killed on some properties posted against hunting.

It’s a problem when hunters don’t kill enough deer. Natural predators aren’t compatible with most places in America, so if hunters don’t do the job the deer population keeps growing.

How can hunters kill more deer? States can raise the number of tags they issue to hunters, but that doesn’t guarantee a higher deer kill. To control deer numbers, we don’t just need to hunt more. We need more hunters. And if we can’t find deer, we should look for new places to hunt.

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When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018, and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.