A hundred years ago, barely 1,000 deer roamed Missouri. Between over-hunting and unsustainable thinking, white-tailed deer were few and far between.
If someone spotted a track in the woods, they would race back to town to share the news, said Jason Isabelle, cervid program supervisor for Missouri Department of Conservation.
"There are people out there that have been around for a while and they'll tell you stories of when they were a kid and just not seeing deer," Isabelle said.
"There was market hunting back then where you could actually harvest deer and sell them in the bigger cities to make a profit," Isabelle said in a phone interview about the 1920s and prior.