Often people question why we don’t have more deer and blame the lack of deer on hunters harvesting too many deer. Though it is possible to over harvest deer in some small pockets of any area I believe the following pictures show the biggest reason we don’t have more deer in most areas. When you have winter habitat that is severally affected by the deer, like this obviously is, harvesting fewer deer would do nothing more then create more winter mortality and food for the predators or scavengers.
That is a nice theory but the the past 80 years of the history of our herd proves you are wrong. For the past 80 years the habitat has supported an average of 25 DPSM even during severe winters. In the mid 70s the herd peaked at over 40 DPSM, so can you imagine how over browsed the wintering areas were then, but the deer still survived and produced the max. number of fawns because the herd had not exceeded the MSY carrying capacity of the habitat.
Claiming that the habitat is controlling the herd when there is more than twice as much food/deer available now compared to 10 years ago is irrational and irresponsible.