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Not sure how precise this really is, but the situation seems to be that humans have colonised a lot of land. We have fragmented landscapes without connecting migration corridors because we've built highways, shopping malls, parking lots, housing developments, etc., etc., and we have animal and crop farming, orchards, gardens, and household pets, and more. Our human habitation caused certain predators to be removed for our safety and prevent re-introduction of some of them as well. In reducing the parcels of land that deer can inhabit as well as removing original animal predators and our introduction of mass crop ag we also made the deer more population invigorated. So, hunting (a management tool) is not at fault for a flourishing deer population; we all contribute.
The less the parcel of land, the lower the carrying capacity (meaning fewer deer for optimal habitat quality for cover and food, and a number in deer that we will tolerate so they don’t interfere in our lives and safety). But, at the same time, with fewer nonhuman animal predators and enticing crop land and gardens means appetizing food and more deer capable of breeding and producing offspring. Without predation, there are fewer acute mortality factors to kill the deer more immediately and keep deer population down. What is left to manage deer populations are more chronic mortality factors – like bad weather, malnutrition, disease – where deer can live a longer time before dieing, and in the meantime devastate the quality of their habitat (and their own herd quality not to mention suffer themselves). So, though non-human predator prey relationships do exist, and other non-human decimating factors, both acute chronic, we have left this important predation ecological vacuum where deer are certain to adapt and multiply.
Again, deer populations can and do eventually manage themselves, but can do so at an enormous cost to their own species’ survival, their habitat – what may be left of it – and to all the other animals that depend on that habitat to sustain them. The way deer manage themselves on their own – without the usual non-human acute mortality factors like predation - can be devastating to their future survival, the quality of the environment and those who live in the same habitat. This has been shown time and time again, when deer are left alone to nonhuman nature’s course.
As such, and since humans aren’t going to stop building and using land for crop ag and aren’t going to bring back the deer’s original nonhuman animal predators, humans must take it upon ourselves to fill that ecological vacuum by simulating the effects of predator-prey relations. Human predation in the form of systematic (e.g., seasonal), carefully controlled and scientifically managed hunting may not be the best, but it’s the nearest thing we have at present that causes the least stress to the deer, other critters and the environment that sustains them. Other things like immuno-contraception can work in control groups where those implementing fertility control know every deer by sight. But, in larger free-ranging wild deer herds there are implementation problems, logistical and practical (and medical and safety), many of which would cause stress to the animals and interfere with the environment.
In the end, nature herself informs us that the best way to control deer populations is through predator-prey interaction. Hunting by humans is the nearest tool we have. Deer will always reproduce until their food supply is exhausted. Yes, nature sorts it out some by fewer fawns being produced of one gender and more of another. But, as the situation is - with fewer predators and our land use/living practices – more deer can remain at higher population levels for many years. So, a number of deer have to die or be killed somehow so that the land can maintain quality deer and quality habitat. That’s the point: To have healthy deer living in numbers where optimal habitat can be maintained. It’s preferable that they die via an acute method rather than dieing over time so that they don’t have time to impact negatively on their own, their habitat and other critters.
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