How to Solve America’s Wild Deer Problem? Eat Them

WSJ ^ | 9 July 2021 | Frank Hyman

[DUMBGRUNT]

Before Europeans came to America, there were an estimated 30 million wild deer in what is now the eastern U.S. By 1900 that figure had fallen by 99% due to unrestricted hunting, and conservationists made it their mission to protect deer from extinction. They might have succeeded too well. Today the wild deer population has rebounded to precolonization levels, becoming a nuisance to suburban homeowners who find deer invading their yards and gardens.

Despite an estimated 1.5 million car collisions with deer in the U.S. each year, the numbers of deer grazing and razing backyards continues to rise. With our pampered gardens for their dining rooms, deer find richer food

Hiring professionals to cull deer populations is an expensive solution, costing around $300 per deer.

Some gardeners manage to dial down deer damage by planting kitchen herbs and medicinal plants with flavors too strong for a deer’s palate.

A fence is a more reliable deterrent. Some deer can jump as high as 11 feet, but a 7-foot-high fence is tall enough...

causing traffic collisions that kill about 200 people and injure 30,000 every year.

If you’ve ever eaten boar in Italy, moose in Sweden or kangaroo in Australia, you’ve enjoyed the legal harvest of native wild animals by private hunters who comply with regulations based on safety and conservation.

In my hometown of Durham, N.C., restaurant owner Gray Brooks wishes that he could provide diners with wild deer meat. Instead, he uses farmed venison from New Zealand; being grass-fed, he says, “it has a better flavor profile” than grain-fed deer from farms in the Midwest. Feeding grain also makes farmed American venison more expensive, despite the shorter shipping distance. As Mr. Brooks says, “The U.S. is the only nation I know of where you can’t serve wild game.”

[Verginius Rufus]

The English word "deer" originally meant any wild animal, as its cognate, the German word Tier, still does. A Tiergarten is a zoo.

[dfwgator]

"Doe!"

[normbal]

Walt Disney admitted to anthropomorphizing animals to steer children away from hunting on at least one occasion.

Bambi was blatant anti-hunting propaganda.

[Trillian]

We have a freezer full of deer, elk and antelope.