Government and Game Management

The Whitetail deer species is Odocoileus virginianus, named after the state of Virginia.

And yet, in 1930 there were almost no deer left in Virginia due to over hunting. The state-wide population was then estimated at just 25,000. 

Today, however, there are around a million deer in Virginia -- more white-tail than at any other time in U.S. history.

In fact, White-tailed deer are now the most common large wild mammal species in the world, with a population of about 35 million.

How did that happen? Simple: government, and the natural fecundity of Mother Nature.

It was the the federal government that passed the Weeks Act in 1911 that bought up the forest-denuded mountains and established the George Washington National Forest which was soon joined by the Monongahela, Jefferson, and Shenandoah.

It was the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, with helpful funding from the federal government, that box-trapped deer in other states and restocked parts of Virginia and put limits on total take by sex and season. 

Today, deer are so plentiful in the Commonwealth of Virginia that the objectives of wildlife officials have changed. 

The new challenge, at least in some areas, is to reduce deer populations in order to lessen their impact on overgrazing, limit the risk of disease, and reduce the number of deer-car collisions.