The Great Deer Comeback

By the turn of the twentieth century, Louisiana’s deer herd was in trouble. Non-stop hunting by people trying to put meat on the table and market hunters supplying restaurants with venison and leather clothiers with hides was pushing the herd to the brink. So many deer were killed that their hides sold for as little as a dollar each.  

In 1910, Florida’s San Mateo Item reported that hide hunters were slaughtering the deer along Cocodrie Bayou in Concordia Parish. The paper claimed that Cocodrie swamp was “the greatest natural deer park in the world,” but an estimated 500 deer had already been killed that season. 

Non-stop hunting by people trying to put meat on the table and market hunters supplying restaurants with venison and leather clothiers with hides was pushing the herd to the brink.

For a $1 commercial license, the hide hunters were depleting the herd that the locals depended on for food. “The people of Concordia Parish are naturally outraged,” the paper reported. “If such destruction is continued it can mean only the extermination of deer along Cocodrie Bayou and if such slaughter takes place in one swamp . . . it may take place in a dozen others. . . .”

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Biologists estimate that Louisiana’s deer population dropped from several hundred thousand in 1700 to an estimated 70,000 by the early 1900s. In some areas, the deer disappeared altogether.

Fortunately, things were beginning to change. A movement known as Progressivism was sweeping the nation and pressuring the government to correct such chronic abuses as pollution, corruption, and child labor. 

In 1900, Iowa Rep. John F. Lacey extended the progressive agenda to wildlife when he introduced the Lacey Act. The first federal law to protect wildlife, the Lacey Act helped curb the market hunters’ activities by prohibiting the interstate transportation of venison and other wild game.

Biologists estimate that Louisiana’s deer population dropped from several hundred thousand in 1700 to an estimated 70,000 by the early 1900s. In some areas, the deer disappeared altogether.

Louisiana climbed on the Progressive band wagon in 1912 when it created the Department of Conservation and gave it the authority to regulate all activities regarding the state’s wildlife. In setting the deer season that year, the Department outlawed the killing of does for the first time, required bucks to have antlers at least 3 inches long, and limited hunters to 5 bucks per season. The selling of venison was also prohibited (another first), but, oddly, spotlighting was allowed.

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Unfortunately, politics eventually came into play when locals began complaining about state authorities controlling parish hunting seasons. As a result, the Department of Conservation set the 1946-47 season to run no more than 45 days between November 1 and January 10, but it allowed each parish police jury to decide which 45 days hunting would be allowed. This became the norm, and police juries continued to control hunting seasons for years to come.

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By the late 1940s, most of the deer were concentrated in 16 parishes, but even there the herd density was just 1 per 74 acres. There were so few deer, in fact, that only 15 percent of the state was open for hunting in the 1948-49 season, and less than 1,000 deer were harvested. 

To improve the situation, the legislature agreed to fund a program to restock deer in depopulated areas. For the first round of stocking, the Department of Conservation acquired 200 deer, with half of them coming from the Texas Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and half from private preserves near Minden and Hammond. Encouraged by the results, biologists took additional deer from Marsh Island, Chicot State Park, and even Wisconsin.

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The stocking program lasted from 1949 to 1969, with 3,378 deer being released in 9 regions. The deer population exploded as a result and hunting improved. While less than 1,000 deer were harvested in the 1948-49 season, 16,500 were taken in 1960-61.

Among the stocked herd were 363 Wisconsin deer. In the 1960s, hunters (including the author) encountered large, pale-looking deer that were generally dubbed “blue deer.” They were believed to be the Wisconsin deer or their offspring, but biologists disagreed and pointed out that the deer trapped in Louisiana were, on average, larger than the ones acquired from Wisconsin.

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Today, there is probably no genetic trace of the Wisconsin deer left in Louisiana’s herd. Mississippi, which used 353 Wisconsin deer and 2,491 native deer in its restocking program, has found no genetic evidence of the former surviving today. Louisiana imported a similar number of Wisconsin deer, but their DNA was diluted by 3,025 native deer. 

By the late 1960s, the deer herd had recovered enough to allow hunting in nearly all of the state, but the season was considerably shorter than today. Gun season usually opened in early November, then closed for a week or so, and reopened for another few weeks in December.

Our current three-month gun season is a testament to just how successful the deer stocking program was.              

Dr. Terry L. Jones is professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe who has received numerous awards for his books and outdoor articles.