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Deer Population Dynamics

The Michigan DNR put this out a bit ago this morning. It's a pretty good vid explaining how they track and manage the herd numbers. They explain and show why a harvest of 40% on a herd of 10,000 will be replenished the following year.

I don’t know about Michigan but here in the Northeast I put out a lot of cameras and I am lucky to get just 1 fawn out of 3-4 does. Not sure why that is but that’s what I’m seeing. This year I had 4 deer come in and 1 was a fawn the rest adult does. That’s not good.

4 deer come in? Is that on one camera? Sounds like a tough place to hunt

The past couple years in Michigan the fawn crop is unbelievable. Twins and triplets everywhere. It’s hard to lower the deer density when the repopulation rate is that fast. Including summer damage permits we take 40-50 does out per year, and you can’t tell. It’s frustrating as our neighbors will take 1-2 does and think it helps. The deer numbers are ridiculous.

Here in the northeast I think you have to factor in predation on fawns by coyotes and bears. We definitely don't have an over-population problem, except maybe in urban areas and on islands. (We're also not a big agricultural area, so '100 deer in our alfalfa' ain't a problem.)

Dana I may be wrong but I hunt big woods areas that have spread out groups of does and I’m finding that some of my areas have few bucks in them to travel and breed all those does and that may be the cause of few getting bred but that’s just my theory. In more urban woods you have smaller plots of woods and congregated does where bucks don’t have to travel far to breed many of them.

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