Reply #80: That's not really why hunting keeps a deer population healthy.

[Raskolnik]

It's not that the sick or injured deer are culled, its that the overall population is kept in check and diseases aren't given a chance to take hold due to overpopulation. For example, something like chronic wasting disease isn't easily spread when the deer population is kept down, but when there is a rapid population explosion in a system that can't readily sustain their numbers, deer will be much more susceptible.