I don't believe any of us know whether the population is down or not, you can't base it on sightings. Once you start to hammer does, they become a lot harder to see. People freak out and think, Oh my god, we've killed too many. Think about it. On a 400 acre lease, if you have 20 doe's, and they have twin fawns, and half of those are bucks, then you will need to kill 10 to just keep the numbers the same. The reason they say you cant kill too many, is because they will become nocturnal just like bucks, once you start slaughtering them. People overhunt stands, and see diminished sightings. People shoot a bunch of does off of food plots, and all of a sudden nobody is seeing any deer on plots and freak out. Its all about pressure. Night time camera surveys are one of the only ways to do a population survey of your property. Sightings are the least reliable, because lets face it, some people have a hard time seeing deer at the zoo.