The Deer Wars Part 2: Mad Science

Outdoor Life ^ | November 2001 | Frank Miniter

[Bowana]

Using experimental drugs when they don't even know what the effects may be on humans and other animals!

The HSUS also wants to try attaching a sterilization agent onto a virus and letting it lose? This group is OUT OF CONTROL!

[steve50]

The WOD guys are trying to "genetically enhance" a naturally occuring fungus that attacks poppy and cannabis plant roots. Of course this thing has a nasty habit of mutating to affect other plants. Could get interesting when they turn that thing loose in the wild. Oh well, "better living thru chemistry" again, I guess.

[Gordian Blade]

Maybe we should put our energy and resources into preventing unmarried human females from reproducing, and leave the deer thinning to the traditional method. Just a grumpy thought for the day. Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. Splicing a contraceptive agent to virus DNA? That's about the most scientifically and environmentally irresponsible proposal I've ever heard.

[Maelstrom]

These people are absolute IDIOTS!

There's *nothing* wrong with the deer population that can't be 100% fixed by relaxing hunting guidelines and extending the hunting season.

Allowing venison to be sold in NYC ALONE would fix a tremendous amount of the problem.

The only thing WORSE than this proposal is the possibility that they might SUCCEED! Instantly the entire deer population goes on the endangered species list!

[Catspaw]

Oh, for pete's sake! Birth control for deer? In Wisconsin, we just shoot them and eat them.

[philman_36]

Next month, in Part III, you'll meet such a sportsmen's group.
This one too? Would you flag me, please?

[Marauder]

This is "misguided" in its purest form. They should work on rats and other disease-carrying pests, not deer. What a waste of time and money.

[Savage Beast]

Such technological possibilities must remain experimental until proven safe to implement. However, it is wise to study them.

At present, it is true that hunting is the best way to keep deer populations under control, and ultimately it is evidently more humane than uncontrolled populations.

However, I do not allow hunting on my land. The deer are beautiful and have never been a problem.

Furthermore, I do not like poachers. I don't like them shooting on my land, endangering my family and property, interfering with my deer and other animals, and interfering with my property rights.

I can understand the thrill of the chase and the love of the outdoors. But I cannot understand how anyone could enjoy injuring and killing an animal and subjecting it to pain.

I think it would be a good thing if deer and other populations could be controlled by means other than hunting.

[woofer]

If you really wanted to reduce the visible deer population, just open up the hunting season for the entire year. I swear those racked ruminant rascals have a secret calendar hidden deep in the woods and they know exactly when the shooting (and flinging) starts.

[TommyDale]

I don't know which is worse -- this group, or the "hunters" who run around North Carolina in residential neighborhoods shooting the deer.

[Savage Beast]

Rats and other disease carrying pests! Yes! That's good thinking.

This is a good reason to continue such research.

Untargeted research--just gathering information--is a good thing: coaxing the cosmos to reveal its secrets.

We never know what applications we may find--for good or evil--but this is for us humans to decide--free will.

The cosmos is God's holy scrupture, continuously revealed, and we can read it. We must decide what to do with God's revelations. This is why we must continuously update our religions, our morality, our belief systems, our paradigms.

[avg_freeper]

This isn't deer population control.

It's hunter population control.

[Savage Beast]

Yes, this is what I really dislike--the "hunters". I don't want them shooting around me and my family, killing deer and no-telling what else. I don't agree with their asumption that hunting is their "right"--on my property.

[verity]

"This group is OUT OF CONTROL!"

Not really. Out of Control would be a taxpayer funded project to convince the deer to practice celibacy!

[StriperSniper]

Its literature describes lethal controls for deer as "irresponsible,"

But it is responsible to loose a sterilization virus?!?

[Bowana]

Why does a story on a topic that is currently a hot topic in conservation get dropped from the Front Page Sidebar?

This story is in the Current month's edition of a top sportsmen's magazine.

It isn't breaking news, but I think it is worthy of "Front Page" coverage!

With the myriad of posts to the sidebar on every facet of the War on Terrorism and from every point of view, isn't there room for any other topics?

[mississippi red-neck]

Morons! Cost effective my a$$. They want to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to do something that sportsmen put millions of their private dollars into the economy to do.

It is the sportsmen the hunters and fishermen that are the true conservationists. It was their tax dollars on hunting and fishing supplies their license fees and their donations that saved species like the whitetail, wild turkey, ducks etc. from extinction, through restocking, bag limits, season limits, and research long before their was any such thing as a animal rights group.

The money that most of these groups take in goes in their own pockets. Then they lobby congress for tax dollars to protect species that sportsmen's dollars have been protecting since the 1920's. The wild game and our parks have been paying a lot of their own way. When these eco-freaks have their way and nobody can hunt or fish and nobody, even non-hunters can set foot in the wilds to enjoy them, they're going to sign the death warrant of a lot of species and parks. No one is going to put up tax dollars or donations for something they can't even see.

[CyberSpartacus]

These methods could be used against human beings as well. Once again proving that the mind of a leftist is more twisted and evil. Than any demon, monster, or devil, that a decent human being could dream up.

[rebelyell]

You may own your land but you do not own the deer that live on it. Your disdain for hunters no doubt comes from past run-ins with trespassing poachers. They are in the minority and most of us that hunt do so on our own land and respect property lines. Perhaps your arrogance is getting in way of proper land stewardship.