Are deer suffering from ‘voluntary overcrowding?’

The North American pre-settlement population of white-tailed deer totaled somewhere between 24 million and 62 million animals, or an average of about 14.2 deer per square mile over roughly 3,011,600 square miles of estimated range. (Hanberry, B.B. and P. Hanberry. 2020: Wildlife Society Bulletin 44(3): 512-518) Most of these animals lived on 2,007,800 square miles east of the Mississippi River. Today, there are somewhere between 11 million and 35 million whitetails, about half of the pre-settlement number. But landcover has changed dramatically, and several Midwestern states hold numbers of deer, ranging from 15 to greater than 45 deer per square mile.