U.S. Deer Herds in Trouble

Reader Contribution by Les Davenport
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Historians believe that nearly 30 million whitetails existed across about 80% of the U.S. before its discovery by European. The mule deer range was about half that size, and their numbers were estimated about one-third that of whitetails. North America’s forests, mountains and deserts thrived with deer before white man’s arrival. By the end of the 1900s, these magnificent animals had declined to a status of endangered. How could this have happened?

Declining Deer Population: Overhunting and Disease

The pre-colonization buffalo herds were also estimated to be around 30 million. Throughout the 1800s, buffalo were needlessly slaughtered and their population dropped to less than 2,000. With bison gone and cattle production not yet keeping up with immigration and the human population boom, deer were intensely targeted by meat hunters. Killed by the wagonloads, the U.S. deer herd dwindled to 1/60th of its 15th-century population.

The yesteryear disappearance of deer is mainly blamed on overhunting; however, the period of vanishing populations also paralleled the end of the Little Ice Age. This documented 300-year period of severe cold weather, suspected to end about 1850, impacted agriculture, health, economics, social life, emigration, and even art and literature (Google “Little Ice Age”). Earth’s continual rising temperature after this historic era of subzero weather caused the upsurge of deadly viral diseases in mammals.

Episodic Hemorrhagic Disease in Whitetail Deer

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