Car vs. deer accident on Thruway near Le Roy

I was recently reading something in my American Hunter magazine about white tailed deer populations declining in North America. They must not be including NY state in their article because there are way too many deer in Wyoming and Genesee counties. The number of deer dead along just about every stretch of road attests to that fact.

.Years ago I never used to see dead deer along the roadway in the summer but I see it all the time now. Farmers would probably love it if the doe population in those 2 counties were cut in half.

BTW, a little factoid for deer hunters that think killing doe is bad for the herd: Taking a doe kills 3 deer, the doe and her two offspring. Killing a buck means the end of the buck and every offspring he'd have sired. I've heard numbers as low as 14 fawns and as high as 20 fawns. It seems to me that a single buck can breed with far more than 7 to 10 doe during a typical breeding season.

If doe tags were sold over the counter during the entire season from early bow to late black powder, I bet more people would hunt.

Doug, Well said, and I could not agree more... But let's add on the problem with hunters finding available land to actually hunt. Everything is posted.

According to State Farm, 80,262 deer collisions in New York between last July 1 and June 30 this year. Many more go unreported. NY is the third highest in the US. Pennsylvania(115,571), Michigan(97,856).

DEC does not compile similar statistics.

(Source: New York Outdoor News, Nov. 16, 2012)

I would suspect a buck does breed more than 7 to 10 times in a season. However, there's more than one buck in the woods. If you shoot 1 buck out of 10, there are still 9 bucks left to pick up the slack. Assuming the numbers you have heard are correct, for every buck killed there are 7-10 does that won't find a different buck than the one that was killed, the rest just end up mating with a different buck.
I have actually heard it the other way around from some people, that killing a buck has minimal impact on the herd size because unless a huge number of bucks are killed the bucks that don't get shot will just end up mating a great deal more to make up for their dead buddies.

I remember when deer populations were so low that hunting parties had to apply for a doe permit. Now there are so many deer that I get 2 doe tags almost every year.

Doug; When I started hunting, deer hunting was prohibited on Sundays. Also, no doe permits were available, but buck or doe could be taken on the last day of the season.

I remember the No Sunday hunting rule, too! I wish NY state would come to its senses and allow baiting and decoys. Other states allow it and there certainly needs to be a larger number of deer culled around here. I'm surprised that the auto insurance companies don't pressure the state to decrease the deer population.