Yes Deer, No Deer

There are approximately 200,000 [2007] white-tailed deer in New Jersey. That's a lot of deer - in fact, we may now be living among the greatest deer population New Jersey has ever seen.

A Piebald deer like the one pictured has been known to roam Hillsborough

It wasn't always like this. In pre-Columbian times, natural predators and Native American hunters kept the deer population in check. And there was even a time, not very long ago when New Jersey's white-tailed deer numbered approximately zero. That's right, z-e-r-o.

20 March 1916 Courier News

According to the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife, the General Assembly of New Jersey began regulating the hunting of deer as far back as 1722. By 1862, the deer population was so threatened that there was a five-year moratorium on hunting. Even with protections and regulations, the deer population continued to fall, and by 1900 was at its lowest level.

There is no doubt that James B. Duke would not have been able to construct his magnificent Hillsborough estate  - with its hundreds of thousands of trees, shrubs, and flowers - were it not for the fact that deer were basically absent from Central New Jersey during the first decade of the 20th century.

There was another moratorium on hunting from 1902 to 1908 - but the deer population didn't rebound. Why not? Well, something else was going on between the beginning of European immigration in the 1600s and the beginning of the last century - and that was the near-total loss of New Jersey's forests.

17 May 1920 Courier News

Between 1904 and 1913 the state actually imported deer from Pennsylvania and Michigan to try to restore the herd - but the habitat was still the missing piece of the puzzle.

A common sight for Hillsborough runners, bicyclists, and dog-walkers.

A casual study comparing aerial photographs of the 1930s with the present day shows that while the large contiguous forests of previous centuries are long gone, the last century has seen a great increase in treed areas - especially in suburbia. With its lack of predators, minimal or no hunting, and all of the tasty trees and shrubs you can eat, Hillsborough makes the perfect suburban address for our white-tailed friends.

"The Good Life", indeed!