My opinion is formed from hunting 2 primary locations
1. Suburban area where gun hunting is allowed, but due to the area constraints is severly limited as is any hunting at all. People will complain out of one side that the deer are eating thier plants and you can't safely drive down the roads, but no one wants to let someone hunt thier back yard. There are way too many deer. More than the habitat could naturally handle, because so many people feed the deer and or provide food for them as thier expensive landscaping.The buck:doe ratio is out of whack and I do see small under weight deer often.

2.Mostly privately owned farmland with excellent habitat, good deal of hunting pressure, but most is focused on bucks. Deer pops are exploding. Forestgrowth & regeneration has slowed dramatically, browse line is horrible. If left unchecked its going to get worse.I can drive in a 6 mile loop and see 100-130 deer in a average night of spotting.


Inplaces where the food supply is not supplemented, the deer will eat themselves right out of thier habitat and destroy it. The food supplydisappears and the deer numbers crash.In places where the food supply is supplemented, the forest habitat takes a pounding, but the numbers don't crash as bad because of crops to eat. but then get a hard winter and see what happens, with huge deer numbers and no winter browse.