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Less deer? Or is it me?

Anyone else notice a sudden drop in deer in western CT? I drive from Southbury to West Haven 2-3 times per week, sometimes to Danbury/Bethel, other times to New Milford. The usual evening and morning spotting places for herds or even single deer is now void of deer. Talked to many people in western CT from hunters, land owners, employees at Bass Pro in Milford/Bridgeport who used to see and hunt them....same exact story. Used to have a herd here, 13-20 over the years, all gone now. Hiking locally, I used to see tons of them, now none. No flowers here eaten, nothing. Coyotes? Coywolves? Bears? I hear eastern CT has many.

Land developers.

Over Harvest, we are now seeing the results of unlimited Doe take.

I believe it’s a combination of all that has been mentioned. They can rectify it by lowering bag limits but they won’t because big money lobbyists for the insurance groups want this decimation

You’re late getting to the party.....deer have been declining for a long time. Like LongBeard said, combo of predators, loss of land and way too many deer being killed.

How about we stop shooting does. Self imposed. Tell all the hunters you know. Herd will rebound pretty quickly if we all work together.

It's all because White Buffalo shot some deer in Redding five years ago. Now there are no more deer in the state. Apparent manifestation of the butterfly effect in wildlife conservation.

Redding, Greenwich and a few other areas. And oh by the way Brenden, wB didn’t reach his prehunt goals in any of the places he set up. Want to venture a guess as to why?

We've all seen the herd drop in just about every part of the state, however I still think hunting is good, it just takes more work. If your goal is shooting 5-6 deer a season I think you're having a bad time. I can only speak for myself, but being in the woods is my main goal, and getting a buck is secondary. I wish it was like 1980's, but I'll take what nature gives.

The dealer have just adapted and move into suburbia! They come out at night and eat ornamental shrubs and my wife’s Rhodendras

I'm in the big woods of NW corner. This past Spring I saw more Deer in the fields than years past. Now those Does just had Fawns. Driving by the same fields now and there are zero out feeding.

I know they are there, it only took one active food source to prove it to me. We've really had some easy winter's so winter kill is minimal.

I'll be back here in three months complaining about lack of Deer sign. That's hunting!

There are generally less deer around. Personally I think that is due to too much old growth forests and the reduction of logging as well as natural predation. I am inclined to place less blame on human hunting activities.

To nehunter point though, where I normally hunt in bad acorn year I would think there wasn't a deer around for miles and in good acorn years there seems to be plenty so that can play on perception.

Keep shooting 20 to so deer there will be lless

airrow is spot on with what he said.

Toonces x2. Yes more doe take does decrease deer population but I think their are plenty of unhuntable areas to keep numbers up. It is the old growth that keeps numbers down. Here in MA our doe take is way less as we have a lottery for 1 doe in the western end but we don’t have the deer numbers we used to and that is because of lack of good deer habitat. Most of our deer are found around houses due to edge habitat. Same with rabbits as I have a ton in my backyard but you will never see one in the middle of the woods. NY has a ton of deer due to all the fields and thick edge growth. The best way to find no deer in a state is look on google earth and go where their is a ton of green ie Pine trees. Look at Union CT area it used to be good but it is loaded with pine areas and old growth so not as good as it used to be.

Years ago I’d see 70-100 deer on a January hunt if we had deep snow. Now I see. 10-20. Way less deer but the deer seem healthier and the older bucks move in daylight a lot more.

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