Total deer hunted in Missouri this season drops 15%

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The total number of deer harvested during the 2024-25 hunting season dropped 15% from the year before, the Missouri Department of Conservation wrote in a Thursday press release.
The season ended on Wednesday. There were 276,262 deer harvested this season compared to 326,448 during the 2023-24 season, the release says. This year’s total is 8% below the five-year average, MDC wrote.
MDC claims that this year’s totals were impacted from the November firearms seasons starting a week later and a plentiful bumper acorn crop.
“Throughout much of Missouri, there were a lot of acorns in the woods,” MDC Cervid Program Supervisor Jason Isabelle said in the release. “When that happens, deer don’t need to move nearly as much to find food, even within the timber, and they frequent fields less often because of the abundance of food in the woods.”
Top-harvest counties were:
- Franklin County – 6,208
- Jefferson County – 4,900
- Macon County – 4,495
- Howell County – 4,490
- Callaway County – 4,445
- Pike County – 4,431
- Texas County – 4,132
- Lincoln County – 4,102
- Benton County – 3,928
- Morgan County – 3,595