It's more because white colonizers killed all the wolves, so deer don't have as many natural predators anymore.

Wolves were not native to all of north America at the time when settler colonialists came to America. Nor were they ever in the amount of numbers that could control the deer population by themselves. Deer were a staple protein of native American societies and were utilized as free grazing stock animals by the tribal people in the anterior of America.

It's pretty typical though that you would have heard someone "blame it on the indians" instead of the white settlers...

The native Americans developed the forest of America over thousands of years, and the overpopulation did not become a problem until the colonizers killed the actual predators who were namaging the deer population.... The native Americans.

The overpopulation got worse when white settlers expanded westward and killed off wolf populations as wolves were the only predators left to help moderate some of the overpopulation. However the real damage had already been done generations before when disease cut through the native American populations.

TIL, thank you. Then controlled/regulated hunting it is!

We had red wolves throughout the south. The northeast had timber wolves. Not to mention puma. Deer had predators everywhere they exist.

I see, so I was thinking of two different diseases.

How do people who eat venison avoid prions?