Deer Friendly - Data History

Estimates for Historic U.S. Deer Populations: Whitetail, Blacktail and Mule Deer - Population

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In his book, Lives of Game Animals, 1953, Ernest Thomas Seton estimated the pre-European whitetail deer populations at 40 million. He estimated the blacktail population at 3 million and the mule deer population at 10 million. A review of his estimates in the 1978 book, The Deer of North American, by Leonard Lee Rue III, page 4, agrees that his estimates have been generally accepted, but the reviewer suggests that his estimates for whitetails may have been high, under estimating the range of the white tail but over estimating the average population density at 20 deer per square mile. He agrees with the consensus that the blacktail and mule deer populations estimates are reasonable. The book provides a total deer population estimate for around 1978 of about 19.5 million, with a bit over five million mule deer and a little less than 1.5 million blacktail.

Deer Can Be Too Many, Too Few, or Just Enough for Healthy Forests. Research Review. Spring, 2012, No. 16. US Forest Service Northern Research Station

... "Deer populations at the time of European settlement in areas of “prime habitat” (3 million square miles) ranged from 8 to 20 per square mile" ... [at the average of 14 per square mile and 3 million square miles of habitat: 14 X 3,00,000 = 42,00,000 or 42 million deer]

Whitetail Deer

In the 1984 book, White-Tailed Deer: Ecology and Management, McCabe and McCabe (p 60) give a widely cited estimate of the total whitetail population in 1500 at 24 to 34 million for North America. Their estimate is based on analysis of hunting by native Indian populations. Deer hunting is still commonly used as a basis for modern population estimates. They also write that Trefethen (1970) and Seton (1909) "estimate the whitetail count for all of North America at the turn of the century [1900] was about 500,000, which Trefethen thought to be the maximum estimate, suggesting the number may have been as low as 350,000." They give a 1980 estimate of 14 million deer.

McCabe, R. B., and T.R. McCabe, T.R. (1984) Of slings and arrows: an historical retrospection, pp 19 – 72. In Halls, L.K., (ed.), White-tailed deer: ecology and management. Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PA. Source of Figure.

In the figure, as summarized in the book, the whitetail deer population is divided into four periods: (A) represents the period when Indians were the principle of whitetails. (B) is an interim period following significant influence of Indians and before intense European contact. (C) is the "era of exploitation" (D) is the modern period of recovery (up to 1980).

McCabe and McCabe's 1984 estimate is the most commonly cited estimate for historic deer populations. One problem with the analysis is that there is a wide range of estimates for the American Indian population and the timing of their population decline. Most more current estimates of the American Indian population are higher that the 2.34 million used by McCabe and McCabe. Their calculations for the graph above.

In a follow-up 1997 book chapter, McCabe and McCabe write [referring to the 1984 estimate] "we ultimately were most confident in the 24 to 33 million range ... We had the fortune to have Gary C. White (Colorado State University) to verify our computations ... " (p. 15). "... we still seriously doubt that current whitetail population exceeds, equals, or approaches that of Columbus' time... by making such public statements without benefit of scientific evidence, a false and misleading message is perpetuated." (p. 18).

T.R. McCabe and R.E. McCabe (1997). The Science of Overabundance: Deer Ecology and Population Management. Edited by William J. McShea, H. Brian Underwood, and John H. Rappole.

One problem with this analysis is the wide variability of estimates for the

The McCabe and McCabe analysis has been generally accepted as the consensus view: UF Research: Total Historic Deer Population November 28, 2000 Science Daily

... experts believe the population of [white-tail] deer in the United States is about equal to what it was before Europeans arrived, with somewhere between 24 million and 34 million nationwide. That's up from just 350,000 in 1900, when the population crashed largely because of unregulated hunting...

U.S. Deer Herds in Trouble September 17, 2014 Illinois, Mother Earth News

... 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... the U.S. deer herd dwindled to 1/60th of its 15th-century population ... Unfortunately, individual state deer management, once based in science, has now grown to be political...

VerCauteren, Kurt C., "The Deer Boom: Discussions on Population Growth and Range Expansion of -Tailed Deer" (2003). USDA National Wildlife Research Center - Staff Publications. 281. Page 16.

VerCauteren notes that "since the inception of modern wildlife management and modern bowhunting, about 1930 to present, whitetails do appear to have expanded their range." p. 15 and "In the lifetime of the last two or three generations of hunters, whitetails have expanded their range and increased in density across the western United States and the prairie of southern Canada, in most cases moving up vegetated river drainages that provided them cover." p. 17 For example, deer were rare in northern Minnesota at the time of European settlement, forests were much different and dominated by elk and caribou. The whitetail expansion continues.

VerCauteren's 2003 estimate (graph above) follows the McCabe and McCabe (1984) model, smoothing out the uptick in the mid-1800s, and adding estimated population into the year 2000, showing the pre-European settlement deer numbers are about the same as in the year 2000.

Some recent estimates are higher: Recent University of Wyoming research puts the white-tailed deer population for North America prior to European settlement at 30 to 40 million in Kauffman, M.J., J.E. Meacham, H. Sawyer, A.Y. Steingisser, W.J. Rudd, and E. Ostlind, editors. 2018. Wild Migrations: Atlas of Woming's Ungulutes. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon. p. 28.

Regaining the History of Deer Populations and Densities in the Southeastern United States. (2020). Brice B.Hanberry and Phillip M. Hanberry. Wildlife Society Bulletin 44(3):512–518; 2020; DOI: 10.1002/wsb.1118

...The presettlement population size of white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in North America may have ranged anywhere from 24 million to 62 million, or even greater, based on potentially conservative deer density values of 3 to 8 deer per km2 and a historical distribution of about 7.8 million km2, of which 5.2 million km2 was the range east of the Mississippi River (McCabe and McCabe 1984, Hanberry and Hanberry 2020). [White-tailed] Deer population sizes declined to a minimum of <215,000 during the early 1900s. Population sizes and mean deer densities were 304,000 and 0.22 deer/km2 by 1940, 476,000 and 0.35 deer/km2 by 1950, 2.9 million to 4.1 million and 2.2 to 3.1 deer/km2 by approximately 1970, 6.2 million and 4.6 deer/km2 by 1982, and 10.8 million to 12 million and 8 to 9 deer/km2 by about 2003...

Hanberry B, Hanberry P. 2020. Rapid digitization to reclaim thematic maps of white-tailed deer density from 1982 and 2003 in the conterminous US. PeerJ 8:e8262 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8262

... To place a maximum bound using liberal estimates of deer densities before Euro-American settlement, deer abundance may have reached 65 million to 80 million in North America, given moderately low densities of 10 to 12 deer per km2 in most of the eastern US, with moderately high to high density landscapes of 15 to 20 deer per km2, and low densities of 3 to 4 deer per km2 throughout the rest of the deer distribution...

Graph above from Kip P. Adams and R. Joseph Hamilton. (2011). Management History. In Biology and Management of White-tailed Deer (p. 355). CRC Press. Click on graph to enlarge.

This graph is the same as McCabe and McCabe from about 1500 to 1975. It assumes the Native Indian populations were decimated around 1500 allowing deer populations to expand. The first explorers didn't reach what is now the United States until 1513, Ponce de León reaches Florida. The graph doesn't match other sources for 1975 to about 2011 reporting white-tailed deer populations.

In a chapter on Management History in Biology and Management of White-tailed Deer (2011), Adams and Hamilton add some speculation on the pre-1500s population of the McCabe and McCabe model, explaining: "“McCabe and McCabe’s (1984) estimate suggests deer populations during this phase were substantial. If we assume an extremely aggressive removal rate of 50% of the standing population, McCabe and McCabe’s estimated harvest suggests a minimum standing population of 9–13 million whitetails." McCabe and McCabe (1984, page 30) actually made an estimate using the removal rate of 50% and came up with a population of 14.2 and 19.7 million. Their calculations.

Continuing with Adams and Hamilton: "However, removing a third of the herd is a more realistic sustainable harvest rate, and suggests a deer population of 9–19 million deer. [p. 356]” Note that the lower bound, 9 million, should change as the removal rate changes - not in their analysis. McCabe and McCabe (1984, page 30) assume an annual harvest rate of 30 percent, nearly the same as Adams and Hamilton, and come up with their estimated range of 23.6 and 32.8 million. It is unclear how Adams and Hamilton arrived at these numbers.

In the current U.S. environment with many fewer large predators but more vehicles, hunters take about 19 percent of the population each year. In California where there is an unregulated mountain lion population, bears, lots of coyotes, and vehicles instead of wolves, hunters take about 7 percent of the population each year.

Their explanation for the big population increase around 1500: “after Columbus as a result of disease, and estimates the human population declined by 20% from Columbus’ arrival to the mid-1600s. Some species, including whitetails, may have benefited from reduced Native American populations. Native Americans routinely relied on the whitetail resource (Halls, 1978; McCabe and McCabe, 1997, 1984; McDonald and Miller, 2004), and reduced harvest pressure could have allowed deer populations to experience an “ecological release” and increase in size. Thus, deer populations may have increased by around 1500 …” Their graph shows a doubling of the deer population over a few decades around 1500 as a result of a 20% decline in the Native American population - the proportions don't match in this analysis. Population estimates for the pre-contact American Indian population range as high as 7 to 12 million, three to five times higher than the estimates used by McCabe and McCabe, which result in a much higher deer population using their analysis framework - closer to the "62 million, or even greater" suggested by Hanberrry and Hanberrry (2020).

Also, because Native Americans relied on fire to manage the landscape which created excellent deer habitat and food supply, it is thought the net impact of their impact pre-European Native Americans was a net increase in the deer population. See "The Return of the White-tailed Deer" and other sources.

History of NH Game and Furbearers by Helenette Silver, Research Clerk, NH Fish and Game. Dept. 1957. Chapter VIII, Big Game, White Tail Deer

... both Morton (1637) and Wood (1634) wrote of the unbelievable multitudes of deer in central and southern New England [excepts from this reference give lots of evidence for early high densities, even deer in mature pine forests which are often thought to be relatively free of deer]

Catawba Indians: A Native Community of Colonial South Carolina July, 2024 South Carolina: A Source Book

... While early estimates of the aboriginal population in the Carolinas place approximately 11,000 or 12,000 in the area during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, modern calculations estimate that there were actually more than 20,000 scattered throughout the territory... The primary game animal for the natives, which contributed to both their diet and economy, was the white-tailed deer. In addition to comprising more than half of the animal protein in their diet, the white tailed deer also began the deerskin trade, which developed through Charles Town and quenched an apparently insatiable thirst in England for buckskin breeches during the mid eighteenth century...

The Ecology of the First Thanksgiving -November 22, 2021 Scientific America

... After millennia of ostensibly sustainable hunting by Native peoples, evidence suggests that New England’s deer population crashed within a few years of European colonization... In the mid-17th century, the colonies of southern New England began restricting deer hunting to only certain months ... the Dutch colonist Adriaen Van Der Donck was told by Native interlocutors in the New York area that “before the arrival of the Christians, many more deer were killed than there are now ..,

Some of these estimates are for North America, but the graph on the U.S. population page is for the United States with the years from 2000 forward based on information gathered for this project that is summarized on each state page. Based on this data, the U.S. whitetail population around the year 2000 is about the same or slightly higher than VerCauteren's estimate for North America. Our current estimate for Canada is around two million white-tailed deer and about 100,000 for Mexico, but these are rough estimates. As discussed by VerCauteren and summarized in information below, the weather in Canada was much colder back in 1450 and white-tailed deer were only found along the most southern eastern parts of Canada -- maybe a few hundred thousand deer. As a result the 30 million number used by VerCauteren for North America was used as the pre-European population for the U.S. in the graph on the U.S. population page. It seems the difference is not significant given the range of estimates described above by McCabe and McCabe.

Canada: The range of white-tailed deer has significantly expanded since the late 19th century. White-tailed deer are not native to Manitoba with the earliest report in 1881. Canadian Wildlife Federation: "White-tailed deer are relative newcomers to much of the range they now occupy in Canada. When Europeans first explored the northern half of the continent they found deer in only the most southerly parts of Canada and this situation had not changed much at Confederation." The modern expansion of deer into Canada is associated with the end of the Little Ice Age. Wikipedia: "The time period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, but some experts prefer an alternative timespan from about 1300 to about 1850." See the Canada page for more detail.

CBC.ca: "Historically confined to the Eastern Seaboard, deer have been expanding their territory across the continent since European colonization." As this information from the state of Maine suggests, the pre-colonization number in Canada may have been very low: "… circumstantial information suggests that the state’s deer population likely did not exist in high abundance prior to the arrival of European colonists in the early 1600’s. With a combination of harsh winters, a higher predator population, and perhaps a lack of young vegetative growth for forage, white tailed deer may have been restricted to the southern coast until the European colonization… "

White-tailed deer numbers strong in N.B. as hunting season gets underway October 31, 2024 New Brunswick, CBC.ca on MSN

... Graham Forbes, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of New Brunswick. ... said white-tailed deer are found all the way to Central America but "weren't really" in New Brunswick until after the 1830s. "They've done well, but there's limits to how far they can go, depending on how severe the winter is. Because when there's very deep snow, those short legs are only so good compared to moose, which are larger, longer legged, stronger." ...

Screening for chronic wasting disease in caribou in northern Quebec 2002.vThe Canadian Vetrinay Journal,. Nov;43(11):886–887.

"The caribou (Rangifer tarandus) herds of northern Quebec and Labrador are comprised of hundreds of thousands of animals; estimates of the population in the early 1990s yielded over a million subjects (1,2)"

Mexico: In McCabe and McCabe's (1997) deer map showing the pre-colonial range of the white-tail deer no area of Mexico is included. The map appears to show a boundary at the Rio Grande river. The combined white-tail population of Arizona and New Mexico is about 100,000. This area is about the same as the current range range of the white-tailed deer in Mexico which has moved west since pre-colonial days.

USDA White-tailed Population Estimate 1975 to 2010

Source: Wildlife Population and Harvest Trends in the United States: A Technical Document Supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA Assessment. Curtis H. Flather, Michael S. Knowles, Martin F. Jones, and Carol Schilli

The graph below is based on a response of 29 states, but indicates a recent peak in the deer population around the year 2000, consistent with the data collected on this site although showing a more modest decline from 2000 into 2010.

In 1890, the U.S. Biological Survey estimated the population of white-tailed deer at 300,000

From The White-tailed Deer Conservation Story in Oklahoma, Youtube Video outdooroklahoma

Deer, drought, and warfare: Managing risk in the central Illinois river valley (CIRV) from the eleventh through fourteenth centuries - Quaternary International, 2023

... White-tailed deer were dietarily and culturally significant for Mississippian people and were the primary source for protein and calories (Jackson and Scott, 1995, 2003; Kelly, 2000; Scarry and Reitz, 2005; Zeder and Arter, 2008)... Garden hunting, or the hunting, trapping, and consumption of white-tailed deer attracted to maize agricultural fields, has been proposed as a risk minimizing strategy by which CIRV residents continued to procure deer meat (VanDerwarker and Wilson, 2016)...

Genomic analyses capture the human-induced demographic collapse and recovery in a wide-ranging cervid January 2024. Camille Kessler, Aaron B A Shafer

... , there is a severe decline in white-tailed deer effective population size (Ne) at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. We found robust evidence for colonial overharvest in the form of a recent and dramatic drop in Ne in all analysed populations. Historical census size and restocking data show a clear parallel to historical Ne estimates, and temporal Ne/Nc ratio shows patterns of conservation concern for mule deer...

Blacktail and Mule Deer

The pattern for the trend in the mule and blacktail deer on the Population graph estimate from about 1450 to 1850 is based on an inverse relation to the change in the human population.

Kauffman, M.J., J.E. Meacham, H. Sawyer, A.Y. Steingisser, W.J. Rudd, and E. Ostlind, editors. 2018. Wild Migrations: Atlas of Woming's Ungulutes. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon.

"An estimated 10 million mule deer occupied North America prior to European settlement. " p. 16

Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States, AN Hristov - Journal of animal science, 2012 - academic.oup.com

Population estimate for pre-settlement mule deer, including blacktails: 13 million.

Cited this source for muledeer: Miller, K. V., L. I. Muller, and S. Demarais. 2003. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Pages 906–930 in Wild Mammals of North America. G. A. Feldhamer, B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, ed. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Mule Deer’s Plight and Peril: A True Story 2012 T. Messmer, KingsCamo.com

... Pre-settlement populations of mule deer have been estimated to exceed 10 million. Blacktails may have numbered over 3 million. Others suggest that the combined populations never exceeded 5 million…

Post-1900 Mule Deer Irruptions In The Intermountain West: Principle Cause and Influences George E. Gruell 1986 United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service

... In Utah the mule deer population was estimated to have increased from 8,500 in 1916 to a peak of 375,000 in the 1945-50 period. Idaho officials estimated that their deer population (including whitetailed deer) increased from 45,000 in 1923-24 to 315,000 in 1963 (Julander and Low 1975)...

Longhurst and others (1981) concluded that prescribed livestock grazing has more potential for improving deer habitat than any other land use practice. These researchers propose that greater efforts should be made to minimize the detrimental effects of grazing on deer habitat, and particularly to explore the possibility of using prescribed grazing to enhance forage quality ...

History and Trends in Black-tailed Deer, Mule Deer, and Their Habitats by James R. Heffelfinger and Paul R. Krausman (2023). In, Ecology and Management of Black-tailed and Mule Deer of North America James R. Heffelfinger, Paul R. Krausman, edtors.

... On page 32 estimated populations in 1950 and 1960 at 3 million blacktail and 6.5 million mule deer for 9.5 million in total. The estimate used here is about 10.8 million, with most of the difference accounted for by recent research putting the 1960s California blacktail and mule deer population at about 2 million rather than a little more than one million estimated in the source cited by the authors. The source author cautions these numbers are rough estimates. Recent research and other sources support the 2 million estimate for California.

Elk

Kauffman, M.J., J.E. Meacham, H. Sawyer, A.Y. Steingisser, W.J. Rudd, and E. Ostlind, editors. 2018. Wild Migrations: Atlas of Woming's Ungulutes. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon. p. 44

Population Estimates: 10,000,000 elk pre-European colonization. A low population estimate of 100,000 in 1900. Current estimate of 1,000,000 (around 2018).

Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States, AN Hristov - Journal of animal science, 2012 - academic.oup.com

Population estimate for elk: 10 million

Cited this source for mule deer: Miller, K. V., L. I. Muller, and S. Demarais. 2003. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Pages 906–930 in Wild Mammals of North America. G. A. Feldhamer, B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, ed. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Should We Have Wolves or Livestock on Public Lands? November 22, 2024 CounterPunch.org

... Prior to the EuroAmerican settlement of North America, there were an estimated 10 million elk, 55 million bison, 10 million mule deer, 35 million pronghorns, and 1.5 to 2 million bighorn sheep ... Today, thanks in significant measure to the livestock industry, we are down to an estimated 1 million elk, 31,000 wild bison, 3.4 million mule deer, 750,000 pronghorns, and 70,000 bighorn sheep...