Are there just not any deer in Western Wa?

[fordpowerforever]

here is part of our problem, as mentioned before my dad has 11 cameras on about 300 acres of land, unit 615 bordering the river line to unit 607 and not far from 612. this is his 5th year doing it without cats on camera till now, thanksgiving he got pictures of the cat and this was the second picture he got, look at the times!!!!!

[snowpack]

I agree, cats are a big problem.  See way more cat sign and have more cat encounters now than years back.  Found a lot more deer bones in 615 than live deer lately.  Same with 607.  Lots of those trails along the rivers used to have the blackberries and salmonberries eaten down and have deer sign, this year they were grown over and very little deer sign.  Used to be that when I would see deer it would be three or four together, now it is usually one or rarely two.  I didn't see any noticeable hair loss this year, but a few years back it seemed like every other deer had it.  I would think the cats are making it real difficult for them to bounce back.

[REHJWA]

I bet if anyone still was holding an archery tag they could go outside in this fresh snow and walk down a deer by the end of the day here in Western WA....

I posted this on the Supposed to Snow Tonight thread. But more Coyote tracks then deer tracks in the snow. 

[haus]

Changes in our ability to hunt the predators, plus disease, little to no burning, and far more chemicals. The later being very damaging imho.
I've been hunting in 633 for the first time the past couple days and saw drastic differences in deer density/activity both days, how a cut is managed has a big impact on how many blacktails it will hold imho. A chunk of reprod I hunted yesterday (green diamond) had more blacktail sign in it than I've seen in years. The several I hunted today (GD, DNR) had a decent amount of sign but not nearly as much as I saw yesterday in the first cut. Difference between the two areas, from what I could tell was how much chem had been put down. You can tell by how much feed there is; if the cuts mostly reprod, salal, and grass...they probably chem'd the hell out of it. Maybe that first cut they got lazy with the chem or forgot to hit it 

Needless to say I'm going back to the first cut tomorrow, where the feeds abundant and the BT's are there to eat it.