There are a lot of different ideas floating around out there about the effect of coonhunting on the local deer population. The range from positive to negative may depend mostly on the region of the country that you live in. In Minnesota where I live people take a very dim view of dogs running deer. In fact many people here will go out of there way to shoot a dog that they think is running a deer.   Urban dwellers typically like to watch deer & become irate at the thought of anything disturbing the local wildlife. Rural inhabitants may be deer hunters or have friends that hunt deer and they also tend to frown on dogs running deer. In the southern states dogs are still used to hunt deer and this is generally viewed in a positive light.

I can tell you a little about the effects of dogs chasing deer because of my dog Deadeye. He was a deer chasing son of a gun and I saw first hand how the deer reacted to him many times. The most striking thing to me is how effortlessly the deer can outrun a hounddog. The deer is usually are able to trot off a little and then stand and watch the dog while he tries to figure out the track. Occasionally Deadeye would come upon a deer sleeping in a bed of grass in a field. Even when he was able to see the deer get up and run away, Deadeye could not come close to catching it. I have never seen a coondog that was fast enough to catch a healthy deer.

Once I had a couple of dogs catch up to a wounded deer. The deer had been shot and its shoulder was broken. Even when the dogs had the deer cornered, there was nothing they could do to the deer. They just stood about four feet from the deer and barked until I arrived. I was able to discipline the dogs and went about my business. Another time, I had a dog catch up to a big deer out in the middle of a field. The deer did not seem interested in running away and in fact looked like he pretty mad at the dog. When I got there the dog was about 10 feet away from the deer barking. I caught the dog and disciplined him while the deer remained and watched. After I had walked the dog away a few yards, the deer seemed satisfied and ran off across the field. I don't think this deer was injured or sick, he just looked to me like he wasn't too scared of any old coonhound!

Something else that I find interesting about deer is how little they change their habits or locations. In many cases the deer are so predictable that I always take dogs to the same area for breaking. Some deer I have chased several times a month for years, they are always back in their area by the next day. There was a study done down south a few years ago concerned with the effect of hounds on the deer population. I saw a report of the findings in Coonhound Bloodlines if you are interested in getting a copy. They used coonhounds trained to chase deer in this study. They would chase the deer out of their area each night and then follow and record the deer's travels. It basically found that the deer would run  around a little while being chased and then would head "home". In almost all cases the deer were back before dawn!