I have heard both sides of the debate on this one and I have to say that when all the facts are presented there really is no alternative to hunting to protect the deer population.
"Wait a minute!!! How can shooting poor little defenseless deer protect deer??? That makes no sense!" is the response I have gotten more than once when I have said that hunting protects the deer population.
"Deer hunting is evil... those poor little deer have done nothing to nobody and just want to prance around in the woods and eat. People just like to go kill things and I think it should be outlawed."
I remember one meal I was having at my In-Laws where my Mother-In-Laws best friend (someone who is about as negative and close minded as they come and will openly insult and deride anything she does not personally like and refuses to hear or listen to the 'other side' of any issue because she refuses to ever admit she could be wrong) was making gagging noises and saying loudly how a holiday meal I grew up with and love is disgusting and sounds like vomit on a plate.
It was New Year's Day and we were sitting down to eat 'Ham and Black Eyed Peas', something that I did not grow up with as a Northerner and have never really personally liked but was eating a small portion to be polite and mentioned that where I am from the lucky New Year's meal was 'Pork and Sauerkraut' and barely got the words out of my mouth before she started in. "What a stupid and disgusting thing to eat...."
To change the subject I turned to my Mother-In-Law and mentioned that I would be bringing over a venison roast from the deer my Father shot soon for a nice roast dinner and the friend felt the need to jump in with her opinion again "OMG! Your Dad shot a deer? How evil... I would never eat a deer and think hunting is evil and against the Bible!"
I turned to her and tried calmly and politely to explain to her why hunting is a necessary evil, but she wanted to hear none of it and talked louder and louder over me, almost chanting "I do not care what you say... hunting is evil and should be against the law and hunters should be shot and I would never eat a poor little deer!"
She continued to tell the table about "Bambi" and how evil hunting is... and how evil guns are... and how it is all against the Bible... and how as a conservative she believes in the sanctity of all life and hunters need to be shot to see how it feels...
Why is hunting a necessary evil?
Before man started killing off the large predators to protect livestock on farms the deer population was kept in check by wolves, bears, lions, bobcats and coyote. The weak and injured were picked off reducing the chances of them getting sick and passing the illness to the herd and with herd numbers lower the available browse (food) through the winter fed a smaller population meaning healthier fawns in the spring.
With the natural predators gone the deer population grew, spreading into more urban settings and farms to find food meaning crop destruction and more and more incidents of deer being hit by cars. Their health declined as the population outgrew the available food sources... spreading disease through the herds and to domestic livestock and to people.
Wild deer suffer through the winter to find browse and will resort to stripping the bark off of trees to survive or nibbling the ends off branches when they cannot find other food sources, damaging young trees and killing many as well as doing untold damage to orchards every winter and early spring.
I will explain it this way... if there is enough browse to support 100 deer through the winter and there are 150 deer in the area then none of the deer will get enough to eat and many of the deer will die of starvation and exposure. Without enough food they will not be able to store insulating fat or grow a thick coat to keep warm and will freeze to death. The pregnant does (deer mate in the late fall/early winter and carry their young to the spring when they give birth) will not have the nutrition they need to have healthy fawns and will only give birth to single fawns instead of twins... the fawns will be underweight at birth and there will be more stillbirths. From that original 150 deer at the beginning of winter only 75 will survive to spring and those will be in poor condition and give birth to fewer young of poor condition. Now... if those 50 extra deer were culled before winter hits the remaining 100 deer would have enough to eat through the winter and would have less of an impact on the surrounding farms and orchards and in the spring more fawns of a healthy weight would be born... and the deer in the spring would be in over-all better condition meaning a healthier immune system.
Before hunting season the regional and local Game Commissions do studies on the deer population taking into consideration the available browse for the coming winter and the winter weather outlook and set the number of deer to be culled that year from the population to best maintain a healthy herd size. They decide how many doe and buck tags to sell to hunters (each tag allows a hunter to shoot one deer, if it is a doe tag they may shoot one doe, if it is a buck tag they may shoot one buck) and as deer are shot the hunters attach the tag to the animal and send in the form telling the Commission the day they shot it, where they shot it, etc... so that the Commission can keep track of the population.
Not every hunter manages to shoot a deer every year and many tags are un-used for this reason... but the Game Commissions know this and take into consideration the number of deer that are hit on the roads by cars and die of natural accidents in their figures... and unfortunately they also figure in illegal poaching. (Quick fact- poachers who are caught with deer face fines and jail time, their guns are confiscated and the deer are processed and the meat sent to food banks, soup kitchens and shelters to feed the homeless and poor.)
If the natural predators were still in the areas that deer populate then maybe hunting would not be a necessary evil... but the same people that do not want hunting to happen do not want wolves, bobcats, lions and coyotes in their area because they want their pets and children to be 'safe'.
Guess what... you have to have one or the other... either you live with the large predators or you accept hunting because those are the only ways to keep a healthy deer population.
Want to kill off all deer in a slow torturous method that will not only see them suffering but risk the lives of domestic livestock and our own foods (livestock and grown crops) then just outlaw hunting and let them slowly starve and die in waves of disease as thier health declines.
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