There are some rather reliable estimates, but it really doesn’t matter if anyone knows how many there are. The deer and their food tell the professionals, monitoring what the deer and food supply tell them, as far is if that area can feed that number of deer, more deer or if there will have to be fewer dee
Knowing how many deer there are certainly matters when allocating doe tags and those allocations are not based on herd health and forest health as the PGC claims. Allocations are still based on the same population estimates as they used before but they are using herd health and forest health as a smoke screen so don't have to release the population estimates. WMU 2F and 2G are rated the same for herd health and forest health yet they are being managed at significantly different densities. If they were being managed on herd and forest health they would both be managed at the same density. When the herd in 2G increased in 2006, the PGC increased the antlerless allocation in 2g, but there wasn't a similar increase in 2F tags as I recall based on my memory.