Of course you also have to take into consideration the fact that the whitetail deer range is MUCH greater now then it was in the past,(it has been spreading north for generations) that the carrying capacity of the land for whitetails is also much larger (while uncut virgin forest can be beautiful - second growth forest and mixed fields and scrub provide much more food for animals) - and a few other things, such as there are probably more coyotes alive in NEW YORK CITY ALONE then there were on the entire continent during the 1700's.

It's a complicated subject, and has an extreme number of variables. Animal populations also tend to go through cycles (sometimes seemingly at random).