Re: What's Wrong With Deer Hunting?

Michael Cerkowski wrote:
>                    WHAT'S WRONG WITH DEER HUNTING?

				Nothing.

>     The purpose of this document is to provide animal protection
> activists...

"Animal protection activists"?! No, you mean kooks.

> with a set of rational counter-arguments  against the most
> common reasons given by  hunters to justify killing deer for sport. 

Too bad your counter-arguments don't live up to the billing of rational, 
much less factual.

> It deals primarily with deer hunting in North America, and the
> United States in particular. Distribute it freely, but please don't
> change the contents without my permission.

Dumb request given the nature of usenet.

>            "Hunting controls deer populations effectively."     
>
>
>   No, it doesn't, for two reasons. First, buck hunting, which is the
> mainstay of this "sport", is virtually useless in effectively managing
> deer populations. Why? Because deer are not monogamous, and a single
> surviving male in a population of deer can impregnate all of the
> surviving females. Doe hunting can offer some measure of control, but
> despite their claims to the contrary, most sport hunters have merely
> a slight interest in hunting does. The only really effective lethal
> controlling measure against deer, however, is killing does. 

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/hunt/regs/2004/animal_listing/#whiteTailDeer

Notice something in that block called "antlerless season"? Along with 
the standard set of tags, licensees receive a set of antlerless tags FOR 
HARVESTING OF DOES. TPWD encourages doe harvesting at the beginning of 
each season, especially in counties where deer populations are at or 
near carrying capacity. TPWD has also extended the number of 
antlerless/doe days to encourage doe control.

> Our current
> system of game management allows does to be killed mainly to leave enough
> forage to produce another year's worth of "Trophy Bucks". There must
> always be a yearly "surplus" of deer to satisfy the hunters who are
> essentially the paying customers of wildlife managers. This arrangement
> places the interests of the hunters above the goal of having a
> biologically ideal, diverse deer population.

Wrong. I don't know what the deer population is like where you live, but 
Texas is considered the best state for white-tailed deer. Our mild 
climate and vast expanses of ranch land are conducive for deer quantity 
and quality. We have no shortage of trophy bucks.

Wildlife managers understand the concepts that lead to healthy herds. So 
do hunters. Most deer leases (deer hunting in Texas is done on private 
land) have requirements about the size of deer that may be harvested to 
keep the gene pool as diverse as possible.

>    Second, not only does killing substantial numbers of male deer not
> prevent an immediate resurgence in population, it actually works to help
> bring about this resurgence. Why? Because most wild animal populations
> have evolved a response to large die-offs: they produce more offspring.

Deer will only produce more offspring under certain conditions. Those 
conditions do not include "large die-offs." They do include the 
availability of water and food. Food availability is a variable that may 
be affected by herd size, but it's also be affected by cessation of 
drought conditions.

> In the case of deer, especially whitetails, does who would normally have
> one or two fawns will 'respond' to a drop in herd population by having
> two or three fawns the following year. 

    In her first year of breeding, a female generally has one fawn,
        but 2 per litter (occasionally 3 or 4) are born in subsequent
        years.
        http://tinyurl.com/quuw

> This is due both to the increase
> in high-quality food brought about by the reduction in the herd and to
> the herd reduction itself; the sudden drop in population appears to be a
> direct trigger for increased reproduction .

Not entirely accurate; what was your source for this?

> This information is not
> secret or controversial. Quite the contrary: game managers include it in
> their calculations when they decide how many deer are to be killed. If
> these managers were truly interested in controlling populations for the
> benefit of the deer, as opposed to keeping them at artificially high
> annual levels, they would ban most buck hunting and instead issue
> licenses to kill only does, and only when needed - generally once every
> two to three years. Such hunts would only be needed every few years
> because only does can replenish the herds by increasing fawn births.

What were you smoking when you wrote this? If you tamper with the ratio 
of does:bucks, you'll only increase competition for territory and 
mating. This has a very negative effect on deer, not to mention other 
species.

> Between that and the ban on bucks, however, this kind of lethal control
> would be wildly unpopular with hunters, and so will not be enacted.

It would also be devastating on the deer population. Balance is *not* 
created by leaving aggressive males to compete for fewer rutting does.

>    Remember, however, that when game managers *really* need to
> reduce populations of deer, they increase the number of doe killing
> permits issued.

Doe management is already being done. As noted above, we have special 
antlerless seasons in addition to antlerless tags.

>        "Hunting is the natural way to control deer populations."   
>
>    This argument is both widely used and widely accepted, but it ignores
> a crucial fact: many prey populations increase and decrease much more
> quickly than predator populations.

That fact is not so crucial. Most prey species are also weaned earlier 
than predators as well. We could go through all the differences between 
predator and prey species and note many such factors that influence the 
ebb and flow between inter- and intra-species populations.

> If nonhuman predation really were
> the primary factor in controlling wild populations of deer, then one
> would expect to see relatively stable populations of both kinds of
> animals in the wild. 

Nature's constant flux doesn't exactly lead to homeostasis -- not a pure 
homeostasis anyway -- but instead is like a pendulum. Thus, your 
paradigm is faulty. So, too, is the misanthropic gesture in removing 
humans from an equation to see if it balances: we, too, are part of 
nature, and we are predators.

> Instead, what has been observed in the absence of
> human intervention is a gradual but pronounced 'up and down swing' in
> both deer and predator populations, with the predator populations
> lagging behind both the increases and decreases. Why does this happen?

Because nature is in constant flux.

> Because it is *starvation*, not predation, that is the primary control
> on most truly wild deer populations. (Deer living in mature forests,
> with wolves as their primary predator, do tend to have more stable
> populations. This is because food in this environment is more limited on
> an ongoing basis, as long as the forest remains undisturbed.) 

Partially true. What happens, though, to wolves and cougars when deer 
populations increase? They also increase. Then the balance swings the 
other way: more predators leads to a reduction in prey. The result is a 
full pendulum shift for both predators and prey. It eventually swings 
back the other way and continues in flux.

>    When a herd of deer first enters an area with abundant nourishing
> plant food, their population increases rapidly over the course of two
> or three years. As the population of deer 'explodes', the number of
> carnivores who prey on them, like canids and large felines, begins to
> increase, albeit at a slower rate.

Not entirely accurate. Predators are wont to extend range to areas where 
prey is most plentiful, and they usually extend their range more 
significantly than prey extends its own range. Under such circumstances, 
it's possible for predators to reproduce at rates commensurate with, or 
exceeding, that of prey.

> The plants upon which the deer feed
> are unable to replenish themselves as quickly as they are consumed or
> damaged, and the food supply eventually undergoes a rapid decline.

Simplistic and inaccurate. The relationship between ruminant and forage 
is accurate, but decline of forage is a function of more variables than 
that.

> Before the population of predators can expand enough to effectively halt
> the growth of the deer population through predation, the food supply
> runs out. Deer begin to starve, and over the course of another one to
> three years, the population of deer collapses, leaving only some of the
> strongest individuals. As the "doomed surplus" deer die of starvation,
> the predators receive what may at first seem like a blessing: plenty of
> easy prey to eat and scavenge. Their populations continue to expand.
> Once the mass starvation of deer has slowed and then stopped, however,
> the predators in turn face starvation. Some of them relocate over large
> distances to find food, while others die. It is this sequence of events
> that produces the 'lag' in deer predator populations compared with prey
> populations, and it is this cycle that disproves the myth that it is
> predation that naturally controls wild deer populations outside of
> mature forests. Weather and other environmental conditions have also
> been observed to have a more pronounced effect on deer populations than
> do predators: a harsh Winter will decimate deer herds on a scale that
> wolves and big cats don't approach, although this can be partially
> masked by predators killing starving or stranded animals that are
> destined to die in any event. The interactions between predator and prey
> populations can be quite complex, but if we want to reduce them to one
> simplistic scenario, then for typical deer herds at least, that scenario
> is not "predators control prey populations". It is, instead, "prey
> populations control predator populations".

Already covered sufficiently in my responses above.

> Food supply primarily controls the prey populations.

It also controls the predator populations.

> Human habitation and, especially, agriculture have
> greatly changed the original dynamic, and it is thus hard to argue against
> *some kind* of human intervention in deer herd populations. 

The "original dynamic" is still operative. Your misanthropic paradigm 
doesn't change that.

> We do have
> plenty of reasons, however, to argue against the current system, which is
> run by game managers for the benefit of hunters.

What benefits hunters also benefits deer populations.

>    Hunters can certainly try to argue - although their case isn't as
> clear-cut as it may at first sound - that the current system of
> *artificial* predation is kinder to the deer, 

What's artificial about human predation? Does "HUNTER-gatherers" ring a 
bell?

Man is every bit a part of nature and what's "natural" as deer, wolves, 
cougars, and forage. Excising man from your equation is a superficial 
tactic taken to achieve a superficial result.

> but they cannot argue that it is "natural".

I can, and I have. The only thing unnatural about it is that we manage 
it as we would other resources, which has its benefits and downfalls.

> They also cannot argue that it is best for the deer, 
> most efficient, or even the most scientific approach. 

Doe harvests have increased significantly over the last twenty years. 
You're argument is either archaic or ignorant.

> They can only
> argue that it gives them the most reliable supply of healthy "surplus" 
> deer to "harvest" each year. 

Strawman. You're ignoring so many other factors of game management, not 
to mention starting from a position that separates man and nature.

> Deer have gone from being completely 
> wild animals to being essentially semi-wild "resources", subject to both 
> artificial measures (like forestry) that increase their numbers, and to 
> being "harvested" by hunters who are deluded into thinking that they are
> acting out some age-old drama of carnivore and prey. 

Hyperbole. Deer are still completely wild, even urbanized deer who seem 
quite tame. Our practices of forest and game management are not 
"artificial," as we are part of nature. Our practices are open to 
contriving certain results, but that's the kind of species we are.

> We convert
> old-growth forest (which tends to limit deer breeding by limiting the
> food supply) to farm fields that allow deer to breed unchecked, while
> displacing them from their increasingly scarce wild habitat into the
> suburbs that we build over it...and then we blame the deer. 

Most farm land in North America is converted prairieland -- NOT 
old-growth forest. Maybe you didn't know that, either.

>    Another, related argument used by hunters is that hunting keeps deer
> populations "healthy". If one accepts that natural selection has proven
> itself to be the most effective way for populations to survive and
> adapt, then current deer hunting practices are, if anything,
> counter-productive. 

Natural selection still occurs with human hunting. A fawn isn't a trophy 
buck; trophy bucks get that way by living long lives, which means their 
progeny are most likely to be numerous.

BTW, if you're REALLY for natural selection, will you join me in calling 
for Congress to cease all welfare programs, programs for the elderly and 
disabled, affirmative action, and every other fiasco which puts slackers 
and the infirm on equal footing with strong-willed people like me?

> By hunting plump does and prime "Trophy Bucks", deer
> hunters are in fact practicing a form of 'unnatural selection'. Killing
> the most magnificent specimens is hardly the way to ensure the long term
> viability of the herd. 

Again, they don't grow massive antlers ("racks") or get plump in their 
first year. It takes a while. Those skittish traits which allow them to 
become trophies or plump does are passed along to their offspring. Your 
argument is funny, though, because I often hear ARAs complaining that 
our hunting practices are leading to bigger deer -- just as we've bred 
livestock to mature quickly and with greater size.

> If deer hunters *really* wanted to do their part
> for the health of the deer herds, they would hunt as do natural predators,
> by killing old, sick, injured and emaciated animals, and even fawns unable
> to find enough food, as their first choice. Again, don't expect that to
> happen for the foreseeable future.

Most trophy bucks, in fact, are quite old. As for sick and emaciated 
animals, there are some health concerns for humans that warrant against 
that. Chronic Wasting Disease, for example, may be hazardous to humans. 
As our species outlives other predators several times over, it's 
probably best to leave those to the wolves, cougars, and coyotes.

> "It's ok to kill "Trophy Bucks". They are old and will die soon anyway."
>
>    This one is just nonsense. Why? Because of the following facts: 

It's also a new one to me, and I've hunted (I started hunting again this 
season; I've donated all the meat to a hunger program) and been around 
hunters my whole life. If you think my being vegetarian is at odds with 
hunting, tell me why it's more acceptable for me to run over deer than 
to shoot them.

> *   Old deer usually die of starvation, unless they are injured.

Uhhhh, trophy bucks are often in their prime or just past it. They're 
not so old that they've no teeth. Most old deer do not die of 
starvation, even outside of human contact. They usually die of predation.

> *   This starvation, unless due to an inadequate food supply, occurs
> because their teeth have worn down to the point where they no longer
> function well enough to adequately chew food.

It makes them easier to catch for cougars and wolves.

> *   Bucks lose their antlers every Winter or Spring, and have to
> completely regrow them the following year.

This is beside the point you raised. So were the redundant points that 
followed.

<snip>

>       "People who oppose deer hunting suffer from "Bambi Syndrome."  
>
>    It's true that some hunting opponents tend to assign to animals 
> like deer attributes that are more human-like than may be appropriate.

I am glad you admit this.

> This "Bambi-ism" is not as universal as hunters would like to believe,
> however, and the real irony is that hunters themselves suffer from their
> own anthropocentric delusion. This delusion is that, by killing healthy
> deer, they are "saving" them from the very population control that they
> have experienced for approximately a million years. Starvation for deer
> is certainly not pleasant, but it is the natural (and let's not forget
> the importance that hunters place on that concept) way for deer to die
> when they are overpopulated. It is much more natural, in fact, than for
> them to be killed while plump and in their prime - or younger. Killing
> a starving deer may well be a kindness, but killing a healthy,
> well-fed deer is not.

It's not a delusion for man to hunt, nor to assign any justification for 
it. Indeed, the "need" to make any justifications for hunting is a very 
recent thing. Humans are hunters and gatherers by nature. The Bambi 
Syndrome slightly precedes the history of animated movies, but few (if 
any) people in the 1800s were concerned with the plight of a ruminant 
species that is *not* -- and never will be -- endangered.

Your subjective aesthetic judgments (killing being kindness or not) are 
irrelevant. You are certainly entitled to hold such opinions, but others 
are also entitled to hold opinions to the contrary.

You failed to point out that encroachment between urban and rural areas 
leads to inter-species conflicts. One of those conflicts is the number 
of deer -- often large, healthy ones -- that dart out in front of 
traffic. Here in Austin, we have a very serious problem with urban deer 
herds. It's not that people have moved out into the country and are 
causing problems (though that is also happening), but that deer in the 
city have gotten out of hand because of the lack of predation and the 
presence of forage. The result of car-deer crashes isn't good for deer, 
cars, or (too often) passengers.

>               "Humans have a natural instinct to hunt."    
>
>    If so, then we are certainly remarkably bad at expressing this
> alleged instinct. Less than 8% of the U.S. population hunts, and there
> aren't exactly lines of would-be hunters being turned away from the
> woods. 

Given the mass-urbanization of our own species, it's to be expected that 
people would lose touch with the natural and replace it with the 
artificial. Urban youths hunt, but they tend to hunt each other. Our 
culture has replaced a feel for dirt with asphalt. Urbanization has 
literally ungrounded humankind.

> Hunting is a declining "sport" as a matter of fact, and it is
> extremely unlikely that we are, in the course ofjust a few short
> generations, losing any genuine instinct. 

As noted above, we stalk and kill each other now. Some are quite brutal 
killing machines. That's what happens when you remove man from nature. 
Are you happy?

> Humans are and always have
> been opportunistic omnivores, and for us hunting has always been
> something that we did to acquire food or fur or skin, and also to
> varying degrees as a cultural activity, not one that we are driven
> to engage in by our very natures. 

You're underestimating the cultural aspects of hunting. Perhaps you 
would do well to read books on earlier hominids.

> Even if one accepts the shaky
> proposition that we have an instinct to hunt (and biologists are 
> becoming increasingly reluctant to use the word "instinct" to describe 
> any human behavior), this "instinct" is clearly a weak one, and, like 
> some of our other less than noble inclinations, we would be the better 
> for ignoring it. 

First, the proposition is not shaky. Second, biologists are less keen to 
delve into psychology and sociology than psychologists and sociologists 
are (blows ya away, huh). More psychologists, sociologists, and 
anthropologists are linking modern human behaviors with earlier human 
behaviors: rather than hunting in packs, we have urban gangs; rather 
than taking a deer or whale, we shoot each other.

The thinking extends to other societal ills. The emptiness of the modern 
misanthropic paradigm is borne by the numbers of people addicted to 
alcohol and drugs. Our species is out of touch with our natural reality 
because we have been separated from nature.

> There are far more rewarding ways for us to interact
> with and protect our environment than by killing for sport.

Strawman. Most hunters kill for more than sport.

<snip>