Out of Control, Deer Send Ecosystem Into Chaos

The New York Times ^ | 11/12/2002 | ANDREW C. REVKIN

[FreePaul]

Maybe the government can come to the rescue by importing wolves to Virginia as they have done other places. Probably easier than exporting deer to places where the wolves are hungry.

[Paleo Conservative]

Expanded hunting, considered by many experts to be the best hope of controlling numbers, has its limits as well. For example, most hunters, and most states' hunting regulations, still favor shooting bucks, even though the best way to control populations is to kill females.

Pretty basic game management. The regulations restricting hunting to bucks were established in the early 20th century to build up the deer populations that had been decimated by overhunting. It is time to recognize that while those policies were very successful in restoring deer population, we now need to decrease the deer population. Also, does tend to have meat that is less gamey than bucks.

[Paleo Conservative]

Probably easier than exporting deer to places where the wolves are hungry.

Why not capture some for zoo animals like lions to hunt?

[bigfootbob]

I'm doing my part! I take an average of 5 per year for the past 10 yrs. or so from my rose gardens. Makes good eating.

[DainBramage]

LOL Make a big stadium and sell tickets like in Gladiator?

[crypt2k]

A few tiger pits should do the trick.

[PoisedWoman]

1,400 deer over the last several years and deported them to ranches in northern Mexico, where officials were eager to restore deer populations.

Apparently herds of illegals have decimated herds of everything else.

[Paleo Conservative]

I'm doing my part! I take an average of 5 per year for the past 10 yrs. or so from my rose gardens. Makes good eating.

They make excellent tamales!

[Rightone]

I live in NW Iowa and nearly daily my wife or myself have close calls wrecking our cars with deer. Nearly everyone we know has hit a deer at one time or another with much property damage as well as physical damage. It is crazy that the deer take predence over humans! It is literally dangerous to drive around here, especially at dawn or dusk.

[spodefly]

When I was 18, and first started hunting here in GA, deer 'season' was 2 weekends, and one of the days was an 'either-sex' day. You got 2 deer tags, meaning you could take only 2 deer per season. It was rare to see a deer, and any sighting was cause for celebration and stories back at the camp. Many hunters could go several seasons without taking a shot. Bucks were wily creatures, careful to avoid contact with anyone, and only the best hunters could take the shots that bagged the bucks.

This year, deer season lasts from the 3rd week of October to the first week of January, and hunters get 12 deer tags, 10 of which are for 'antlerless' i.e., does. The entire season in south Georgia is either-sex. Opening day this year I saw 10 deer, all does, many of which came within 30 feet of my stand. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. I am one of the 'graying' hunters who generally goes hunting because I love the fun of the hunt, but doesn't take shots at does that are too dumb to get out of the way ... it would be like hunting skinny cows, just standing there waiting to be shot ... thats not hunting to me.

Now, if there were a mechanism in place to get the meat from some of those does to hungry people, then I would take the shots, and the herds would be thinned somewhat. But I am sure any such endeavor would run into resistance from the warm-hearted anti-hunter types.

[MCH]

Maybe the government can come to the rescue by importing wolves to Virginia as they have done other places.

Somehow I don't think the local human population would be particularly keen on this idea.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[FreePaul]

Somehow I don't think the local human population would be particularly keen on this idea.

That hasn't bothered the Government whacos from doing it in some parts of the country. Why should the Eastern part of the country be immune from the enviornmentalists' foolishness.

[July 4th]

The damn things are worse than rabbits. Wisconsin hunters routinely bag 400,000+ each season, motorists collide with about 50,000, and all it does is temporarily slow their reproduction.

[antaresequity]

In a few places, the animals are relatively easy to kill, deport or sterilize

Let me tell ya a little story... In my neck of the woods, if its got fur or bark they want to save it...no matter and knowing no extreme...

There is an Island at the end of the peninsula on the bay facing the city...

Roughly 2 x 2 miles; it supports a sizable deer population. In fact at one point, according to "experts", it had grown too large for the island...

Quickly catch phrases were floating around the local papers: Sustainable Balance, Habitat Management....yada yada yada

The eco-extremists forced the State of California (its people), to pay for studies, failed sterilization programs, failed deportation programs...

It was a circus.

Legions of college kids with clip boards, activists, and other "interested parties" descended on the island through the course of this colossal failure of a project...a most appalling waste of tax payer dollars...

I knew these waters having grown up on the nearby shore...At the time I lived on the water and was constantly in the straits with my Whaler on the way out the gate...

The most indelible images from the whole charade was the deer they caught yesterday, swimming back across the straits the next day.... Deer have commuted to and fro the island for millenia..What were these nitwits thinking?.

Eventually they all moved on (the eco horde..), and the deer are still doing their thing...swimming the straits when mood arises...dining on the lush park grass in the heat of summer...never have known the hunter....

[RKV]

"hard-nosed intervention, either aimed at stopping reproduction or increasing mortality"

Shotgun hunting, no take limit, no tags. They kill quick and don't go too far. Problem solved in a couple of months. Apply as needed for control.

[aruanan]

Well, discourage hunting at the same time that food sources are increasing and this is what you get.

[RKV]

LOL. I also live in the PRK, and yes deer can swim even if the nuts can't figure it out.

[antaresequity]

Ultimately, even many deer lovers say, more hard-nosed intervention, either aimed at stopping reproduction or increasing mortality, will be needed.

I hate the mincing of words.....What he meant to say but cant bring himself to is: Kill Some Deer...