The deer: from Chapman's rarity to the restored herd

1880 to the present

The going: The Virginia deer stands in Chapman's 1880 chapter among the animals already effectively gone from the county — "the beautiful Virginia deer" in his list of the departed and the rare. The state's own project history gives the deer's Indiana ending its two last stands and its date: "The last stand of deer in the state was in the Kankakee region and in Knox County, where the last known wild deer was killed near Red Cloud in 1893." The Kankakee name matters to this county: the marsh country that began at this county's western edge was, with Knox County in the south, one of the last two grounds in Indiana where a wild deer could still be found — and then, from 1893, the state held none at all for forty years.

The return: The restoration was a state project with numbers on it. Between 1934 and 1942 the Indiana Division of Fish and Game released 296 white-tailed deer, bought chiefly from Wisconsin with others from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, principally on the public lands of the southern hill country; 111 more followed in 1953–55. By 1951 the herd stood at an estimated 5,000 and Indiana held its first modern deer season. The northern counties, this one among them, were rebuilt by a second current as well: the cooperative state–federal wildlife record states it directly — deer immigrating from Michigan helped rebuild the herd in northern Indiana counties, walking down the same river corridors the Parkovash deer had used. Today's county deer need no release records: deer are the ordinary large mammal of the county's parks and river bottoms, abundant at Potato Creek State Park and throughout the county's remaining woods, hunted under the state's modern seasons — the restored herd's third generation of management, in which the question is no longer scarcity but numbers.

Sources:

1. Chapman, History of St. Joseph County (1880), Chapter II, p. 340.
2. John M. Allen, "White-tailed Deer," Indiana deer project history (Project W-2-R), Indiana Division of Fish and Game — the last stand in the Kankakee region and Knox County, 1893; 296 liberations 1934–1942, tabulated 1934–1955.
3. Chad Stewart (Indiana DNR deer biologist), "Deer Reproduction and Localized Management," Indiana Woodland Steward — last reported deer 1893; 296 released 1934–1942; herd ~5,000 and first season 1951.
4. Wildlife Conflicts Information Hotline (USDA–APHIS Wildlife Services, Indiana DNR, Purdue Extension), "Deer — Wildlife Conflicts" — Michigan immigration rebuilding the northern counties.