White-tailed deer nearly vanished from much of the country around 1900 and came back to more than 30 million. These are the key dated moments.
Deer timeline
Before settlement: About 30 million white-tailed deer are estimated to have lived in what is now the United States.
1800s: Market hunting for meat and hides, plus habitat loss, drives deer numbers down across the East and Midwest.
1900: Congress passes the Lacey Act, which bans interstate shipment of illegally taken game. Whitetails are down to an estimated 300,000 to 500,000.
1937: The Pittman-Robertson Act puts an excise tax on firearms and ammunition toward state wildlife restoration, funding deer restocking across the country.
1940: Illinois counts only about 500 deer statewide.
1967: Chronic wasting disease is first detected.
1991: Illinois deer pass 100,000.
2002: Hunt4 Deer.com is part of the original Hunt4 family of hunting sites.
2025: Chronic wasting disease has been documented in 36 states as of April. Hunters take more than three million antlered bucks in a season, only the second time this century.
Today: More than 30 million whitetails live in the United States.
Sources
- South Carolina DNR: history of white-tailed deer
- Boone and Crockett Club: the great wildlife restoration
- MeatEater: how the whitetail nearly went extinct
- Illinois DNR: how Illinois brought back the white-tailed deer
- U.S. Geological Survey: CWD distribution data (first detected 1967)
- onX Hunt: the whitetail rut (citing the National Deer Association 2025 Deer Report)