There are 1,000,000 deer in Minnesota and the annual deer hunting season only removes 19% of the herd,,,,,,,hardly enough to maintain the biological integrity of the state's woodlands.........Why is it necessary to have a wolf hunting season when these carnivores are clearly not putting the deer into a freefall situation?

Minnesota Deer

 harvest drops 4 percent in 2012

kare11.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota hunters
 harvested 
184,649 deer during the 2012 season, down 4
 percent from the previous year  according to numbers
 released 
Monday by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 
(DNR).
The decline was expected because the 2012 season was 
designed to help stabilize and increase populations, said 
Leslie McInenly, DNR big game program leader. "We 
expected the reduction," she said.

 in Minnesota, which
 represents a stabilization of the 
population as numbers 
had been trending down just a 
few years ago.

“The Minnesota DNR went through
 an extensive deer
 goal setting process from 2005-2007
 and the recommendations
 were to lower deer populations throughout 
most—but not all—
of the state,” said Lou Cornicelli, big game
 program coordinator
 for the Department of Natural Resources
. “Aggressive harvest
 strategies were implemented and the
 population trended down 
towards the established goals. Currently, 
there is an interest in 
slightly increasing deer populations, so
 the trend for the next few
 years may be on the upswing.”

A lack of anything like a normal Minnesota
 winter should also
 help that “upswing.”

“Most of our [deer] problems come
 from winter severity in 
northern Minnesota and the associated 
mortality, of which
 there really wasn’t any this year,” 
Cornicelli said.

So, the does entered the spring in
 excellent condition, strong
 and healthy, plus the earlier-than
-normal green up provided
 plenty of high-quality vegetation.
 Cornicelli expects that fawns
 had high survival rates.