A brief history given of white-tailed deer management in U.S.

In 1909, one of America's foremost naturalists, Ernest Thompson Seton, estimated that at the time of the European settlers' arrival in Jamestown in the early 1600s, the density of white-tailed deer in the Eastern United States was 10 per square mile.

Using Seton's calculations, the deer population would have been approximately 400,000 in that region alone. From this early abundance, however, numbers would decline steadily with only a few brief exceptions over the next 300 years.

With an ever-increasing number of settlers came habitat loss, over-harvesting and possibly most importantly, lack of any effective management practices or game laws. Theoretically, the initial small-scale clearing of forests and conversion to agriculture should have benefitted the deer herd, but sadly, this was not the case. As the decrease in deer numbers became evident to the early settlers, some decided to act.

Measures to bolster deer numbers were undertaken as early as the 1630s in the form of bounties on predators. By 1646, with herd numbers not responding, Portsmouth, Rhode Island enacted America's first closed season on deer, with no hunting allowed between May 1 and November 1 and a 5 pound fine for any violation. In 1699, the Colony of Virginia also established a closed season, running from February 1 through July 31. The fine for violation of this law was 500 pounds of tobacco. In 1705, to improve compliance with the law, an amendment was made providing for the payment of half the fine to anyone acting as an informant.

Hunting as a means of survival was eventually accompanied by increasingly heavy commercial demands on the white-tailed deer resource. A trade in deer hides developed. Between 1698 and 1715, records indicate that Virginia annually exported approximately 14,000 hides to Europe. In 1748, 160,000 deer pelts were sent to England from South Carolina. Market hunting, to feed the venison appetite of a growing nation, became widespread. This was especially true in the mid- to late 1800s.

The Lacey Act was the first federal law to address the protection of wildlife resources on a national level. It prohibited the interstate transport of any wild game or birds taken in violation of state or territorial law. This law, along with the fact that deer had basically become scarce throughout their range, marked the beginning of the end for market hunting and any further depletion of the deer resource for commercial gain.

James L. Cummins is executive director of Wildlife Mississippi, a non-profit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plant resources throughout Mississippi. Their web site is www.wildlifemiss.org.