Ralph Loos: Illinois deer and turkey hunters both facing a numbers problem

For 16 or 17 years in a row, I’ve gotten the same phone call from 16 or 17 different deer hunters just before the gun season.

“You’re always writing about how good of shape the Illinois deer herd is in, yet I haven’t seen a deer under my treestand in three years,” is how the call usually goes – give or take a year or two since the last time the hunter on the other end of the line saw a deer under his or her treestand. They’re not exaggerating, this I accept, because there are patches in the state where deer remain scarce.

Some of it has to do with development of wooded areas. Some of it has to do with disease, which takes a toll on deer each summer. Some of it is management.

All this while some parts of Illinois have too many deer, this evidenced by the new law I recently mentioned here that makes it easier for farmers and landowners to thin deer causing damage to crops. My reporting on that issue heats up some otherwise cool hunters, and a few think I’m just scribbling a rosy “deer are in good shape all over the state, fa-la-la la-la-la” ditty for all to hear.

I am not. I have not. I will not. I cannot.

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THE ANNUAL CALL THIS YEAR CAME on Nov. 4, when a hunter who frequents woods in a handful of southern Illinois counties let me know  – in fairly blunt language – that he “strongly disagrees” with a front page article I penned that he described as a “positive forecast” for the 2025-26 deer season.

In his opinion, my crystal ball, along with my typewriter, had a few too many Heinekens when analyzing the deer population.

“The deer herd is in trouble down here, so please stop writing about how good it is,” the caller ordered. “Somebody needs to start doing a deer count statewide so we accurately know what the deer population is doing. Count the deer so we know the facts.”

Actually, for 16 or 17 years, I’ve said the exact same thing. But as I’ve written many times, conducting a deer census is not a simple task. And given the long-running financial crunch DNR has been swimming in, there’s little chance a deer count will take place.

WHAT STICKS OUT TO ME on this topic is that Illinois deer hunters and Illinois turkey hunters are sort of in the same situation.

In recent years, both groups have had solid – even record-breaking – harvests, but both are facing a wildlife population crisis. Turkeys, like deer, were nearly absent in the state early last century. Work by conservation groups and hunters helped bring back both populations to levels that were admired by other states.

Like deer, success of the wild turkey recovery effort is seen in the annual hunter harvest numbers. A record 18,189 birds were harvested during the 2025 spring season. Because of this success, like deer hunters, many turkey hunters are nervous about the sustainability of the population. At last check, estimates put the Illinois turkey population at about 150,000 and the deer population at around 660,000.

Remember, those numbers are just numbers. Nobody is tip-toeing from down in Thebes up to Zion noting each and every turkey or whitetail they come across. Nobody is counting.

So, instead of an abacus, we rely on crystal balls and typewriters.

ralph@outdoornews.com