early European explorers and colonists were fascinated by reports of Native American techniques for hunting deer
Source: Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Theodor de Bry, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt ... : quae est secunda pars Americae (1591)
Native Americans in Virginia relied upon deer for meat and skins. Antlers and bones were manufactured into tools, and sinew was used to bind objects together. Skins were used for clothing and bedding, but not for cladding the exterior of houses known as yi-hakins in Tidewater. Native Americans in Virginia used reeds and bark rather than skins for making houses. Only the Plains Indians relied upon skins, since there were so few trees on the Great Plains.
Deer were hunteed throughout the year, sometimes by driving then onto a narrow neck of land where they could not escape. The deer thrived in savannah-like habitats which the Native Americans created through intentional burning. The hunting pressure was light, except near the towns. Hunting parties sortied into the forests away from the population centers, and members of different tribes must have encountered each other regularly on such deer hunts.
Native Americans used deer skins for clothing and bedding, and covered the exterior of their houses with reeds and bark
Deer almost disappeared from Virginia in the 1930's, but there may be more white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the state now than at any other time in history. Current population estimates suggest there are 850,000-1,000,000 deer within the state, reflecting a dramatic increase in available habitat and a reduction in predation.1
At the start of the 21st century, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries managers changed the state's management objectives for deer. For the last three centuries of wildlife management, the goal was to increase the herd. Wildlife officials are now trying to reduce deer populations in many counties and cities across Virginia, to reduce the impacts of overgrazing, limit the risk of disease, and reduce the number of deer-car collisions.
Traditional "protect Bambi" or "coexist in peace" attitudes have changed in areas where excessive deer populations result in significant damage to shrubs planted in suburban yards. Property owners have started to ask wildlife officials to treat the deer as a problem species, and to thin the herds. In Loudoun County, Lyme disease associated with deer ticks became a political issue in the 2012 presidential election. In a non-traditional twist, political conservatives advocated for government actions to prevent a "massive epidemic threatening Virginia."2
deer can double their population within just one year
Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge
Native Americans used fire to alter the species pattern in Virginia's woods. Setting fires increased the percentage of nut-bearing trees (oak, hickory, and chestnut) that generated food each fall for deer and turkey, and maintaining open patches of grasslands (especially in the Shenandoah Valley) created edge habitat for deer browsing. "Gardening" the woods created an artificially high deer population, but that was offset by hunting pressure. Bows and arrows were effective weapons for harvesting deer, which provided skins as well as food.
Native Americans used "beamers" (carved bones with two parallel edges) to scrape flesh/fat from fresh animal skins
Source: Virginia Humanities, Virginia Indian Archive, Bone Beamers
After the English colonists arrived in 1607, the deer population (estimated at 400,000-800,000 animals) was dramatically reduced by over hunting. By 1931, it had dropped to perhaps just 25,000 deer.
The Lacy Act in 1900 prohibited commercial sale of wildlife. That ended market hunting of deer and other wildlife for meat, except for personal use, but the population was so low that natural recovery would be unacceptably slow. The Virginia Game Commission (now the Department of Wildlife Resources) began to import deer from other states in 1926 and release them in areas with low populations. Restocking continued until 1992.3
restocking efforts that began in 1926 focused on counties west of the Blue Ridge
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.6)
Virginia deer distribution in 1938 (estimated 50,000 deer)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.7)
Virginia deer distribution in 1950 (estimated 150,000 deer)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.7)
Virginia deer distribution and relative abundance in 1970 (est. 215,000 deer)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.8)
Virginia deer distribution and relative abundance in 1980 (est. 425,000 deer)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.8)
Virginia deer density estimates by county in 1988 (estimated 575,000 deer)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.9)
Virginia deer distribution in 2004 based on population index (antlered buck kill/deer habitat in square miles)
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.9)
Healthy does can produce two fawns each year; the deer population can double in just one year if predation (including hunting) is low. Does interact with their fawns just two-three times each day for nursing. The "moms" spend the rest of their time about 300 feet away from the fawn, which hides alone on the forest floor.
Does may choose to give birth near a road because the traffic deters predators. The safety benefits are offset at least in part by the danger of being hit by a moving vehicle.
West of the Blue Ridge, a 2021 study revealed that 60% of fawns died before the end of their third month. About 70% of the deaths were due to predation, particularly from black bears. Bears were more likely to encounter fawns by chance in areas with little screening vegetation. In valleys with high grass in fields and brush along streams, the does could hide their young fawns more successfully than on ridges with sparse ground vegetation.
Bucks range within a core area of about one square mile. During the rut, however, bucks may travel as much as five miles within a single day.
Does mate with multiple bucks. DNA analysis reveals that 25% of twin fawn have different bucks as their fathers. A fawn may breed in the first year of its life. Male "button bucks," with antlers beginning to break through the skin, may have enough weight and testosterone to impregnate does before their first winter.
Acorns are the preferred food in the Fall. Acorns of white oaks are preferred because they have less tannins. Acorns from the species of red oaks have more unpleasant-tasting tannins that help preserve the acorns until they sprout, a year after falling from trees. Acorns of white oaks get eaten first because they taste better.
When the acorns are no longer available, deer browse on brush, vines, and branches. In suburban areas, deer damage to plants in yards becomes more of a problem as Winter begins.
Female fawns which reach a weight of 70-80 pounds by late Fall may go into estrus. In some years with a heavy acorn crop, nearly 50% of the female fawns may gain enough weight to initiate a "second rut" during the second and third weeks of December.
Button bucks as well as full-size bucks seek to breed during the late rutting season. Full-sized bucks are often too big to breed successfully, so the early-maturing button bucks have an advantage in their first year.4
about 25% of twin fawns have different bucks for their fathers
Source: PxHere
During the decades when increasing the deer population was the priority, state regulations limited harvest of does and steered hunters to shoot bucks. Because male deer (bucks) will inseminate many different female deer (does), the most effective technique is manage populations through hunting is to harvest the does. Killing even a high percentage of bucks, the deer with the attractive rack of antlers desired by hunters, will reduce next year's crop of fawns far less than killing does.
fawns have spots to help them hide from predators
Source: C. Watts, Flickr
Stricter enforcement of deer hunting laws starting in the 1920's had an impact, in part because it is easy to distinguish the sexes during the Fall hunting season. Only bucks have seasonal antlers, just like elk and moose. Female caribou are the only members of the Cervidae family that grow antlers, and those are much smaller than the antlers on male caribou. Females of sheep, goats, cows, and bison in the Bovidae family have horns that never fall off, along with the males.
Antlers grow from "pedicels" or mounting points on a male deer's head, and they form even before a fawn is born. When mature, tissue known as "velvet" will form at the pedicel. Velvet protects the bone-forming tissue initially:5
velvet protects the bone-growing tissue that produces antlers, on a cycle determined by testosterone and day length
Source: Flickr (by James St. John)
bucks (male deer) grow antlers in the late summer and shed them after the rutting season
Source: National Park Service, Antietam NB, Monocacy NB, and Manassas NBP, Draft White-tailed Deer Management Plan and EIS
The deer population increase after World War II was caused in part by management of hunting, but largely by the increase of habitat. Young forests grew up on farms abandoned since the agricultural depression in the 1920's and the population migration to the cities during World War II. As the suburbs grew after the 1950's, deep woods and open farm fields were replaced by a patchwork of shrubs/small trees, intermixed with lawns.
Animals that needed unbroken blocks of woods, such as the pileated woodpecker and wood thrush, lost habitat. As a result, their populations dropped, but deer benefited from the increase in "edge" habitat. The shrubs and young trees produced twigs and other food within four feet of the ground, accessible for browsing - in contrast to older forests, where new growth is concentrated at the top of trees and thus far out of reach from deer.
The creation of sheltered locations and the elimination of most predators, especially where leash laws for dogs were enforced, led to higher reproductive success by does. The human baby boom after World War II was accompanied by a parallel boom of fawns in the suburbs.
The increased deer in rural areas provided increased opportunity for hunting, and that has been sufficient to keep deer populations in balance with the available habitat. Hunting pressure was far less in most suburban areas, where hunting was limited or banned in order to reduce the danger of stray shots hitting houses, cars, or people.
Source: Arlington Master Naturalists, Too Many Deer?
In the suburbs, low-growing vegetation has been eliminated by over-browsing. The impact on the habitat has been dramatic in places where the almost complete elimination of vegetation below four feet in height has eliminated any shelter for ground-nesting birds to raise their young. Without low-growing plants, the species diversity in the Eastern Deciduous Forest will collapse.
Forests can recover from excessive grazing pressure, if there are periods when young plants get a chance to grow high enough to survive herbivores like deer. Exclosures (fences excluding deer from a patch of ground) at Manassas National Battlefield Park have revealed that the reservoir of seeds in the ground can produce new plants of species that are missing outside the exclosure. At some point in the future, however, the seed bank will be exhausted and the species diversity at the park will be permanently altered. The habitat there could support 15-25 deer per square mile, but the average population between 2001-2013 was 139 deer per square mile.
Leaving "protected parklands" alone without active management will not preserve natural areas in the suburbs. Local and regional parks are threatened by the failure to manage the unnatural, excessively high numbers of deer. The cycle of natural regeneration in Virgina's deciduous forests has been broken because the seedlings have been eaten. After decades of excessive browsing, there are too few oak and hickory saplings now waiting for a gap in the canopy to provide enough light to grow tall.
Reducing the number of deer to about 20 per square mile and replanting trees can re-establish the natural pattern of forest succession:6
Surce: National Park Service, Resilient Forests Initiative - Managing Deer Impacts
deer browse lines are revealed when azaleas bloom, and the only flowers are above the height of a deer's reach
cedars are not preferred food for deer, but when populations exceed the carrying capacity the deer will eat everything at Manassas National Battlefield Park
Wildlife management, including hunting regulations, are a state (not Federal) responsibility. Since 1947, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) - now the Department of Wildlife Resources - required hunters to stop at a big game check station to record their deer kills, which provides essential data to assessing the population. In 2006, there were 1,100 check stations, operated by volunteers. Rather than count the deer population directly, the state agency estimates deer population changes and designs the following year's hunting regulations using data from the check stations.
The Department of Wildlife Resources revises the deer hunting regulations annually. The state agency has defined roughly 100 management units between 26-1,112 square miles (with an average of 401 square miles). The state does not seek to maintain the highest population level of deer at the "biological carrying capacity" in order to maximize the sale of hunting licenses. Instead, the state agency has lengthened hunting seasons and encouraged harvest of antlerless deer:7
deer population in Virginia now exceeds the number thought to be here when European colonists first arrived
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.3)
Arlington County chose to inventory its deer population directly in 2021. It employed drones with thermal imaging cameras, to identify the warm-blooded deer hiding in the woods and grassy fields at night. That population count enabled the county to determine if the population was close to the biological carrying capacity of the remaining green spaces.
From a biological perspective, deer browsing should not eliminate regeneration of oak seedlings or low-lying vegetation needed to provide shelter and habitat for ground-nesting birds. A population of 5-15 deer per square mile would be healthy, but the 2021 survey revealed that 12 forested areas in Arlington County had an average of 124 deer per square mile.
In the urbanized county, deer were crowded into just a few small areas of remaining natural vegetation. There was a clear impact on the vegetation in county parks by the excessive number of deer, each of which was browsing an average of 5-7 pounds/day of twigs and leaves.
The county set a target of no more than 20 deer per square mile, but public reaction to deer management proposals was strong. Harvesting deer with trained sharpshooters was the lowest-cost option, but members of the Animal Welfare League of Arlington advocated for an alternative to killing deer. The organization said in 2024:8
An inventory of the statewide deer population, at the level of detail comparable to Arlington County's project, would be excessively expensive. The Department of Wildlife Resources does not require more-specific population numbers in order to set annual hunting regulations. Population trends based on hunting statistics are adequate for establishing annual hunting regulations. The reproductive capacity of the population was so high that the state wildlife managers could adopt more-restrictive hunting regulations, and population recovery would quickly compensate for even several years of excess harvest.9
individual warm deer can be spotted on cool nights by thermal imagery cameras, but state officials do not require such detailed population data to set annual hunting regulations
Source: Skies Eye Drone Services, Chital Deer Thermal Drone
In rural areas, farmers can get permits to kill deer that are damaging crops. In suburban areas, recreational deer hunting is not sufficient to keep the population close to the cultural carrying capacity. The state has sought to increase hunting pressure in such areas by authorizing special urban archery seasons and implementing a site-specific Deer Management Assistance Program. It allows landowners to get extra authorizations to kill antlerless deer, after establishing a quality deer management program.
In some suburban counties, state hunting regulations are not the strictest constraint affecting deer hunting. Northern Virginia cities/counties have ordinances that ban use of firearms within 50-100 yards of a public street or occupied dwelling; subdivision roads/houses scattered across those counties limits hunting opportunities. Some counties have fewer restrictions on use of bows and arrows, allowing archery hunting from tree without any limits.
Fairfax County has no acreage or distance restriction for archery hunting. In 2014, Prince William County modified its weapons ordinance and considered a proposal to ban archery hunting within 100 yards of a house or public road. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries made clear that the state agency supported use of archery hunting to reduce excessive deer populations:10
In the end, Prince William County modified its ordinance to restrict bow hunting only within 100 feet (not yards) of regularly occupied structures.11
restrictions on shooting within 100 yards of occupied dwellings or public roads blocks deer hunting in most of Prince William County, even the Rural Area northwest of Manassas Battlefield
Source: Prince William County, Hunting Restrictions Maps - Gainesville
Home Owner Associations (HOA's) also restrict behavior on private land and common areas. In Fairfax County, the Reston Association has approved hunting efforts after other efforts to deter over-browsing (including spraying chemicals thought to make vegetation un-tasty to deer) were not effective, and that reflected a shift in community opinion.
In 2004 the Reston Association banned archery hunting, even on private land within the community. That triggered a lawsuit filed by two landowners and the Archery Trade Association. The court upheld the association's right to control hunting within that community, and the two landowners were "grandfathered" permission to hunt because they had documented that use prior to passage of the new restrictions in 2004. By 2014, managed archery hunts were common within Reston, including within the appropriately-named Hunters Woods subdivision.12
The City of Fairfax also has sought to control deer without hunting. That city's land use pattern changed from suburban to urban, as nearly all parcels were developed ("built out"). By 2013, within the city limits the only parcel large enough to permit hunting with firearms was the Army-Navy Country Club golf course.
In 2013, city officials started a research experiment to control the deer population through chemical sterilization. The City Council rejected proposals to authorize archery hunts, and approved a privately-funded program to sterilize does. About 30% of the female deer population was sterilized, at the cost of $1,000/doe. After state and local officials approved spotlighting and use of bait, the organization doing the sterilization planned to capture and sterilize 90% of the female deer in 2014-15.
Hunting does reduces the population for just one year, until new deer migrate into the territory. The City of Fairfax hoped that the sterilized does would remain and occupy the habitat. That would block in-migration of fertile deer from Vienna and Fairfax County, which was expected to occur if the deer in Fairfax City had been removed in an archery/firearms hunt. If sterilization was successful, the City of Fairfax deer population levels would stay at lower levels than in nearby jurisdictions.13
healthy does can produce fawns for over 5 years
Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, White-tailed Deer Fawn
In 1950, deer were "absent or rare" in Fairfax County. By the 1980's, suburban development had increased the habitat suitable for deer and eliminated predators. In 1997 local officials estimated there were 25,000 deer in Fairfax County.
Fairfax County established its deer management program after a fatal deer-vehicle collision in 1997. The county calculated that 15-20 deer per square mile was the appropriate population level, but there were 40-100 deer per square mile in many places. An adult deer eats about one ton of vegetation each year, and public parklands were being damaged by excessive grazing. In addition to ecosystem impacts, the excess deer population created a high risk of deer-vehicle collisions and spread of ticks to humans.
too many deer results in grazing of suburban gardens and shrubbery, and resting on grassy lawns
Source: Northern Virginia Soil and Water District, Green Breakfast - Managing Deer in an Urban Landscape (November 2023)
The county declined to request authorization from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (now Department of Wildlife Resources) to use fertility control methods, and considered introduction of predators to be an unrealistic policy option. It adopted traditional control measures for county-owned land, authorizing a public archery program and managed hunts using qualified hunters selected via a lottery. In addition, police officers were used as sharpshooters.
In some years, over 1,000 deer were harvested from 100 public properties.14
Fairfax County relies primarily on its archery hunts to control the deer population on county land
Source: Fairfax County, Fairfax County Deer Management Program
While reducing the deer population to the cultural carrying capacity has become management objective for most of Virginia, the 2006 Deer Management Plan did propose increasing the number of deer in the Appalachian Plateau physiographic province and in the ridges/valleys of the lower (northern) Shenandoah Valley. As described by Mark Taylor in his Roanoke Times column:15
in 2006, deer populations on private lands were below desired levels only in three southwestern counties, where habitat was increasing as strip mines reforested
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.43)
Opinions of professional wildlife managers regarding how to manage the deer population do not automatically match public perceptions. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources is government by a board appointed by the governor. Every governor wants support from the voters who hunt and fish, and the state wildlife management agency is sensitive to public opinion.
When preparing the "Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015," state officials surveyed the opinions of local officials to evaluate how the scientific recommendations would be received in different areas of the state. On the Appalachian Plateau where the state agency proposed to increase the number of deer, local officials in two of the three counties (Dickenson and Wise) did not sense that their residents supported the recommendation. In Highland and Amelia counties, where the objective was to stabilize population, local officials thought the public would prefer increasing the number of deer.16
In both counties there are large blocks of state-owned lands that attract hunters during deer season. The local perception may reflect the economic impact of wildlife-related tourism. Some hunters measure success by the number of opportunities to shoot at a deer, rather than by the Quality Deer Management objectives to offer opportunities to harvest a smaller number of larger/healthier deer. If more deer would result in more hunters, and more hunters would generate more economic activity, then the desire of local residents in Highland and Amelia counties to increase the number of deer could reflect the impact of hunter-based tourism.
opinions of county/city administrative officials about how they believe their residents consider the deer population (too small, just right, or too large) during 2005
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2006-2015 (p.77)
Large bucks grow large racks of antlers desired by trophy hunters if they have easy access to highly nutritious food, reach full maturity, and inherited the genome for large size. While a doe will reach full size in two and a half years, the largest antlers will appear on well-fed bucks that are over four years old:17
trophy bucks grow the largest antlers after they are four years old
Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Digital Library
Mythology about deer, especially when and where to hunt, has been part of Virginia culture at least since the beginning of European colonization. The Spanish explorers who first traveled through the southeastern United States spread myths as well as facts.
Far back in 1530, a report on the explorations of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon along the Carolina coast included a tale that makes Disney's Bambi movie appear almost scientific:18
Modern cultural conflicts involve hunting deer, and the procedures allowed for that practice. State regulators have defined a "dog line" along the Blue Ridge, with traditional deer hunting using dogs allowed to the east but prohibited to the west. Western residents accepted a restriction on use of dogs as part of the initial hunting regulations established to restore the deer population, but east of the Blue Ridge the tradition was too engrained.
In 1938, the General Assembly granted hunters the right to go onto private property to retrieve hunting dogs which had not returned to the hunters. Farmers and other landowners who may have sought to restrict hunting on or near their property had to accept the "right of retrieval," since dog retrieval was no longer an act of trespass. In 2021, the Virginia Board of Wildlife Resources debated whether it should recommend the legislature establish a landowner notification requirement, but decided to make no proposal to the General Assembly.19
The number of licensed deer hunters peaked in the late 1980's, and has declined steadily since the late 1990's. Traditionally, white males from rural areas were the majority of deer hunters in Virginia. The impact of demographic changes in rural Virginia have not been offset by the recruitment of female hunters, and declining revenue from hunting license sales will limit the resources available for habitat and population management.
Biologists worry that population management options will be limited if hunting pressure declines too far, creating "herds without hunters."
the decline in the number of deer hunters could affect population management efforts by the Department of Wildlife Resources
Source: Department of Wildlife Resources, Herds Without Hunters
the idealized version of cute deer causes public reactions to deer management proposals that involve hunting
Source: Aria Soha
deer stand at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge
Jurisdictions harvesting more than 3,000 deer in 2009-2010
Source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Deer Kill Data
teepees made from animal skins were common on the Great Plains where trees and swamp reeds were scarce, but in Virginia the Native Americans used deer skins for clothing and to make leather straps (and later sold deer skins to English colonists)
Source: Smithsonian Institution, Crow Lodge of Twenty-five Buffalo Skins (by George Catlin)