[Post Toasties]

I'm not sure if even hunting would be sufficient. Hunters prefer to shoot bucks, not does, leaving most of the does to reproduce. Also there is a fear that chronic wasting disease, closely related to mad cow disease, might be communicable by eating venison.

[hoosierskypilot]

How true. One state up north (Wisconsin?) required its hunters to cut off the deer's head and submit it for testing. That'd definitely turn me off. It'd be about like a recall on your microwave oven, and when you turn it in, the guy that takes it is wearing one of those suits that protect against radiation, saying, "Oh, don't worry, it won't hurt you!

[Cvengr]

"...chronic wasting disease..."

Just another name for democratic socialism,.....didn't realize deer had been infected,..so much for venison.

[toddst]

I'm not sure if even hunting would be sufficient. Hunters prefer to shoot bucks, not does, leaving most of the does to reproduce. Also there is a fear that chronic wasting disease, closely related to mad cow disease, might be communicable by eating venison.

I haven't done much research on this yet, but a preliminary review indicates no examples of the disease causing health problems in humans. Also, if restrictions are removed from hunting does, hunters will be happy to harvest them for the meat.

If deer become a serious problem simply declare them varmits and remove hunting restrictions until such point as the population is under control. This is not rocket science.

[Redleg Duke]

While the hunter ethic is to take bucks, controlled harvesting by use of "antlerless deer only" permits can address this situation. What is the problem is the restriction of hunting combined with the absence of predators.

What the Enviro-Nazis don't want you to know is that there are many times more deer in North America than there were when the white man first arrived. Whether the Enviro-Nazi Bambi-Lovers want to admit it or not, we, man, is a valuable and necessary predator in the food chain. Disney may want you to believe otherwise, but we must perform that duty or the herd will be decimated by disease and famine.

[DugwayDuke]

Of course, most hunters would prefer a deer with a nice rack but most hunters would take either sex. I can't speak for other states but here in Alabama the most popular hunting days are those that are hunters choice, ie, you can take either. While it depends on which county you reside, the hunters choice here in Madison county is only nine days long while the bucks only season is seventy days. (Note, for some counties hunters choice is all seventy days.)

It's not so much that hunters prefer bucks but that restricting the days one can hunt does, increases the deer population since the does survive to breed.

[SSN558]

"I'm not sure if even hunting would be sufficient."

I think you are right. Ohio has a few too many deer and plenty of deer hunters but they barely make a dent in the population. Actually, by my observations drivers that hit deers bag more than the hunters do. The insurance companies must hate it. None the less, the state fish and game agencies could not operate without the income produced by hunting licenses and tags.

The deer like other wild creatures have adapted to suburban living. In the burbs hunting is not practical due to the lack of open space. The deer know this and find the garden greenery much more tasty than the farmers crops. I have watched the family SUV back out of drive ways, and seconds later the deer hop the fence to enjoy a nice home grown meal.

[Ditter]

A ratio of 2 does to every buck is an OK ratio. The Texas landowner of the ranch where my husband hunts, surveys(counts from a helicopter) the deer herds & then tells his hunters how many does they *must* kill to keep the numbers in check. They are also supposed to cull all inferior bucks. They are each allowed only one buck taken as a trophy. These rules have greatly improved the dear herd.

[OldSmaj]

Hunters prefer to shoot bucks, not does...

Never had the misfortune to meet some of the ignorant buffoons that fancy themselves great white hunters in the NE portion of Alabama, huh?

I own some acreage, upon which reside some prime whitetail deer, both buck and doe. I put out mineral licks, cultivate feed plots and encourage mast production.

I once tried to allow some persons to hunt on my land.

Mistake. They would not follow my desires in culling the herd. Everybody wanted the trophy, but they would shoot at anything that moved, to include owls, skunks, raccoons. They spit wads of chewing tobacco on the ground, left the empty Red Man packs laying where they fell, one even left a six-pack of empty Dr. Pepper cans under the tree he was hunting from.

They would urinate and defecate indiscriminately and then wonder why the deer would not approach the area.

One fell from a tree and then threatened to sue me for medical expenses and for damages to his expensive rifle. I won only because he was the only one that I had failed to provide a written permission to hunt on my land. (A requirement in Alabama.) They did "whoopty-doos" on the terraced areas of a maintained pasture with ATV's. They refused to follow my established trails and insisted in driving their fat asses to their chosen hunting spot, ignoring my designated spots.

I put a stop to it and now am cursed repeatedly by those that abused it the most.

I allow no one to hunt my land, now.

I don't care if the deer resort to eating one another, I will not allow another ignorant so-called "hunter" to enter my land.

It is overpopulated, but I have decided to allow nature to take it's own course.

Enough of them wander to adjacent lands that are hunted heavily and thence killed, that I know it will not be a problem.

The main thing is that I no longer have to deal with the idiots.