So Many Deer, So Much Development

washingtonpost.com ^ | Sunday, December 12, 2004 | Brigid Schulte

[crushelits]

Growth Thwarts Va. Hunters

The dawn is still, a faint brightening just above the dried husks of a Purcellville cornfield, the moon still bright. Jay McKeever freezes and slowly inches down into a squat. A white-tailed buck emerges from a thicket of bare trees, the "big boy" he has tracked all morning.

The buck, colorblind to the blaze orange baseball cap McKeever wears, comes to a halt. It would be a perfect shot -- and a rack of antlers worth mounting. McKeever curses quietly, his Browning .270-caliber deer hunting rifle, with scope, untouched on the frozen ground next to him. The buck startles and bounds back into the woods.

"I could have shot, but I don't know where the bullet will go," he whispers. "It could hit a bone and deflect." These days in Loudoun County, a ricochet could be deadly. The plastic-tipped rifle bullet McKeever uses can keep goingafter it passes through a deer and travel up to a mile if he misses. And though they are invisible beyond a rise at the edge of the field, a Christmas tree farm and a new development of $700,000-plus homes sit in his line of fire. Some of the yards have brightly colored slides and jungle gyms. Hunting in the shadow of mansions, McKeever says, is "like a head-on collision. There's just no place to let a rifle bullet loose around here that's not going to wind up getting in trouble."

[Cornpone]

Time to get a new gun. He needs a a 30-30.

[spodefly]

He could try a shotgun with slugs or buckshot.

There are a couple of places here in GA where I am not too comfortable hunting with my 7mmRemMag. So I'll opt for the Winchester model 94 (.44Mag w/ hollow points) or a Remington 11-48 12 guage shotgun with 00Buckshot.

[crushelits]

In some part of Maryland that's the only thing you can use. (slugs or buckshot).

[elmer fudd]

I've encountered this same problem. A couple years ago a friend and myself spent the season hunting an island that was absolutely teaming with deer. The problem was you almost never got a chance to shoot them because they were ussually standing in someones front yard. Eventually we both did get our deer, but we never chose to hunt there again.

[Timm]

Evidence that the bias is sometimes just pro-conflict, and not necessarily pro-liberal, even in a paper like the WP. The WP finds a place in their hearts for gun owners who want to tromp around in hiding and fire their weapons on, near, or toward other people's homes?

Would someone who wanted to open up a target range in this area get such nice treatment from the WP, do you think? Or even freakin' mountain bikers, riding on other people's property?

If deer get out of control, then local residents will have to decide what to do. In the meantime, it's just too bad that these hunters' recreation is curtailed by other people spending a fortune for property and a home (even a home that looks "zactly" like the others). Someone lives there. You're just going to have go get permission, or shoot somewhere else. Boo hoo.

[Capriole]

Yes, it's true, as the Post article complains--Loudoun County, Virginia, is absolutely infested with these creatures. You can't drive down the road without seeing one or more of them running along the side of the road or standing in the garden of a vulgar McMansion. They're breeding out of control and establishing their habitat in what was formerly beautiful open countryside. They are Yuppie Scum, and I certainly support shooting them. ;-)

More seriously: deer are a problem almost everywhere, but particularly in Loudoun County, which is the second fastest-growing county in the US. Many new Loudoun residents buy or build in what was until recently farmland or forest, and are then surprised that they have to deal with displaced wildlife and the other problems inherent in country living. In my county we have had some luck in dealing with yuppies, PETA types, and deer all at the same time by staging deer drives, in which professional hunters slaughter large numbers of deer which are then used to feed the poor. It's not a perfect solution but it's better than nothing.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to live within a couple hundred yards to several hundred thousand acres of wilderness area and multiple use public lands.

[taxesareforever]

My question is, why is he hunting, let alone packing that rifle if he is not going to shoot? Something fishy in hunting country with this story.

[flying Elvis]

Better yet, he needs a 12lb Mountain Howitzer, which this guy uses to hunt deer in Wisconsin. http://www.buckstix.com/howitzer.htm

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..if deer get out of control, then local residents will have to decide what to do...

Could you supply an example of where 'local residents' have managed overly large deer populations?

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..the plastic-tipped rifle bullet McKeever uses can keep goingafter it passes through a deer and travel up to a mile if he misses...

Sounds like a Glaser-like opportunity, for some clever ammunition or projectile maker.

[Quilla]

I agree, something's fishy, why is he even there? Also, I'd never lay a scoped Browning on the ground.

[Renfield]

Heck, I just shoot them in the yard. A bow works fine, and it doesn't alarm the neighbors. Killed my third deer of the season yesterday (although I used a shotgun on that one)....I have enought venison in my various freezers to last me a couple of years.

[Conservative Infidel]

Time to buy a crossbow. Arrows almost never ricochet and you can always see where they went and they will never "travel up to one mile" after they ricochet.

[Recovering Hermit]

In some part of Maryland that's the only thing you can use. (slugs or buckshot).

Same here in Southern Michigan.

[hellinahandcart]

ping

[crushelits]

[crushelits]

[TMSuchman]

Just look at Wis. when their deer got sick. They had to destroy almost the entire herd, because of some nit-witted idea that we don't need to hunt. Hunting is a way of life for some people, and a way to control the size & populations of animals!