It is peak birthing season for white-tailed deer in New Hampshire. The number of deer in the state is expected to nearly triple – temporarily – with the birth of fawns from late May to mid-June. They will both inhabit and shape the forest over their lifespan of a decade or less.
New Hampshire Fish and Game annually reminds people who find newborns fawns to leave them alone. White-spotted fawns are perfectly adapted to remain well-hidden in sun-dappled shade and remain still, awaiting an attentive, nearby mother doe who will return at least twice a day to nurse the fawns.
Adult deer typically give birth to twins. To keep fawns safe from predators, does keep twins and triplets apart. If a predator finds one, they will not find the others. If a fawn is threatened, it may drop its head, flatten its ears, and even suspend its breathing.
A week or so after birth, fawns will become more active, learning to follow the doe and even sprint from danger.
Life is tough for fawns: a study on Mount Desert Island in Maine found that more than 70% of fawns don’t survive their first year.
Nevertheless, the net gain might be 5,000 deer per year in the state. And across southern and central NH, deer increasingly inhabit a human-shaped landscape.
Deer face shifting predator populations and suburban hazards like roads, car collisions, and increasing pressure from development.
It can be a hard-knock life for individual deer. But taken collectively, they have the overwhelming power of sheer numbers, which create direct effects on the ecosystem.
According to New Hampshire Fish and Game Deer Project Leader, Becky Fuda, the peak deer population was estimated at 110,000 deer statewide prior to the fall 2025 hunting season, with a record harvest of 15,000 deer.
Wildlife biologists estimate the deer population is nearly 8% of the human population in New Hampshire; that’s one deer for every 13 people.
Impacts on backyard landscapes, from fruit trees and shrubs to prized perennial and vegetable gardens, are familiar to homeowners.
Deer are also having direct effects on forests in some regions of the state.
In the areas with the highest deer densities, forest understory plants like wildflowers, ferns, tree seedlings and young saplings are being impacted by heavy deer browsing.
As tender native plants disappear, invasive species plants are taking over. Plants like oriental bittersweet, barberry, buckthorn, burning bush, garlic mustard, and multiflora rose.
And all those deer are the primary vectors for the spread of wood ticks and black-legged ticks. More deer, more ticks, more blood-borne pathogens including Lyme disease and a growing list of other diseases.
Deer are beautiful, graceful and sleek. But they are also powerful in terms of their impacts on New Hampshire forests by their sheer numbers.
Something Wild is a joint partnership of the Forest Society, NH Audubon and NHPR.
