Local Deer Population

LEBANON, OH -- The recent Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) article in the news discussing the opening day of the 2025 deer gun season was something I had been waiting to see. The report indicates a lot more deer were harvested than I expected based on my nearly 20 years of deer watching here in SW Ohio. I tallied and photographed so many deer during the annual ruts from 2007 until now that I became known to several folks as "the deer whisperer." 

My detailed notes indicate that until this year, I was seeing an average of 54 deer during the rut as I traveled the roads with good deer habitat. The maximum number I ever recorded was 86 in 2011. This year, I only saw 3! 

I have a naturalist friend, who lives out in good deer habitat in the Greene-Warren-Clinton County region, who reported not hearing a single gunshot on opening day of the Ohio deer gun season this year. He could not remember that happening before. And, I am seeing fewer deer hunters this year in the local deer habitat.

I have pondered why I am seeing so few deer locally, including both deer on the hoof and road-killed deer. Factors possibly affecting my reduced sightings this year include; epizootic hemorrhagic disease, habitat loss, and changes in farming methods and harvest schedules. It can't be that my eyesight has diminished. I can see better than ever with the newly implanted lenses I got during cataract surgery, and I can sure see the horses and cows on the farms where I also used to see all the deer. 

After the hunting season is over, I'm hoping to get clarification from the ODNR that will help me understand why I am not finding deer this year in places they have always been before, to be sure, local deer are not on the verge of extinction. 

The recent snow cover revealed a few deer tracks, but not in the amount I have seen in bygone years when some areas exhibited as many tracks as a dairy farm barnyard. Yet, even with the snowy background, I only saw one deer this week. Their dark winter coats against the snow have always made them as obvious to me as a cricket on an angel food cake.

So, where are the deer? Where are they hiding? At this point, I certainly don’t know. It appears to me that something has changed. I’m waiting to learn why I’m not whispering to many deer anymore.

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