I think that people from Deer Friendly intentionally manipulate with the data visualization. They smooth the graph elsewhere and only show the population plummeting when it satisfies their agenda.
For example the graph here about NY looks more honest [0].
Also I am not fully convinced about their argument related to the sampling methods. [0] seems to be again more honest in this case.
Also they do not mention increasing numbers of feral hogs that hunt the deer fawn as a predatory balancing factor to the possible cause of deer number decline.
This still does not mean that deer do not cause damage to the other species and biodiversity and that they do not increase their numbers over the resource exhaustion which were the the main claims of [1].
Anyway, the deer example was a counter example to the claim that "all species self-regulate".
Even more generally, in their niche they are a fine example of "trying to exploit in an entire ecosystem for the benefit of a single species". They do not live in harmony with diverse range of other species in their habitat.
