I thought that the deer population had a rough winter?

We keep on hearing how it was a rough winter (it was and LONG) but ND has cut the number of deer tags because the deer population had such a tough winter. One of the farmers from our church said....yeah that's true....instead of 200 deer like I saw last year....I only see maybe 195 deer.....maybe ND should give out more deer tags.....otherwise we will be hitting lots of deer with our cars! YUCK!!