They are impressive animals, but an editorial from Bloomberg News (via the StarTribune) explains that there are negative features to consider, especially when the population expands:
There were about 1.09 million deer-vehicle collisions from June 2010 to June 2011, State Farm Insurance reports, with average property damage of more than $3,000 an accident. Add to that a billion or so dollars for agricultural damage. Deer carry ticks that spread Lyme disease. And their voracious chomping has resulted in "ghost forests" -- particularly in the Northeast.
If a forest is healthy, it will support about 15 deer per square mile, and many scientists say that a degraded patch can't be restored unless the population is about five per square mile. Compare that target with the actual deer densities: Some areas of the United States have 40 to 50 of them in a square mile, with much higher estimates in some Eastern suburbs.
In New Jersey, one-third of the remaining species of native plants are endangered, largely because of deer. Many warblers, thrushes and dozens of other ground-nesting birds lose the protection of native plants, and some species of native pollinators -- butterflies, moths, beetles -- vanish...
The hunters who are supposed to control the deer want to keep the numbers up so they have a better chance of shooting a buck. They support changes such as the New Jersey measure to allow bow hunting closer to houses, but they generally oppose efforts to reduce the deer population...
Good grief, Stan, for a second I thought there was a downside to beer...
ReplyDeleteAn easy way to control the population would be to issue a permit for bucks, but let hunters get all the does they want. Too bad it's the other way around here in NY State with no end in sight for deer collisions.
ReplyDeleteBring back wolves
ReplyDeleteThat photo's an elk; I assume you meant for it to be a white-tailed deer? (or are going the European route of calling them red deer)
ReplyDeleteWell, that is interesting, because native elk disappeared from Minnesota and Wisconsin long ago, although they have been introduced in northern WI, where I think they are monitored with radio collars. I grabbed an image from my iPhoto files, taken along the MN/WI border on the east side of the Mississippi River several years ago. The location where this photo was taken is hundreds of miles from where the monitored herd is supposed to be (in the Chequamegon National Forest). Maybe I should look into this.
DeleteWell, that's cool! I found a couple of things about reintroduced elk in Minnesota:
Deletehttp://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/novdec02/twoherds.html
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/elk/index.html
But those are way up in the northwest corner of the state, also hundreds of miles from the border.
I spoke to one of my neighbors, who worked in the Department of Natural Resources here in Wisconsin. He indicated that the most likely explanation is that this bull elk was on an elk farm, or was an escapee from an elk farm.
Deletedeer-vehicle collisions
ReplyDeleteThis is a deceiving term. It's not the deer that collides with the vehicle. It is the driver who is driving to fast to avoid an object on the road and crashes his vehicle into the deer. Most deer are even standing still, and still get hit.
I am not denying the problem, but the POV is very car-centric. It is people who build roads through deer habitat, it is people who want to drive fast, and it is people who then are surprised when they occasionally find a deer on the road. None of that is a problem. There is only a problem when people drive too fast to avoid the deer in the road.
Nepkarel, maybe it's the case where you live that cars hit deer because the driver is going too fast, but where I live (southwest Oregon) the deer almost always leap out of the brush onto the roadway, often so close to the car that there's no chance of avoiding a collision. I'm a motorcyclist, and as such I'm very aware of the danger of deer, and I never ride too fast on roads that go through deer country. Still, I've had close calls that were over nearly before I knew what was happening.
DeleteI grew up in western Pennsylvania and went to college in northwestern Pennsylvania and in those areas where the terrain is very hilly with thick woods there are deer crossing signs where there are known deer sightings. Even so, you can be driving carefully at night and a deer can come running down a steep hillside and sometimes you really can't avoid them as they jump across a road. You don't even see them until they're on top of you. So in some cases, the deer really does hit the car. I've had my close calls, but have been lucky.
DeleteSometimes, the terrain and the winding roads combine to give both drivers and deer limited lines of sight. When darkness and bad weather add to the situation, the possibility of collisions increases.
And the downside to humans ???
ReplyDeleteWe have a similar overpopulation problem with snow and canada goose. Here in Texas we have a special season for snow geese. Bag limit- none. Electronic calling allowed. No plug required in shotguns. I could tell stories...
ReplyDeleteBut it has a limited effect on the population because goose hunting is hard and expensive. Deer hunting is cheap and easy. You could just field trap them like some are doing with feral hog, another overpopulated species.
Wish there were as simple solutions to our overfishing problems in saltwater. A real tragedy of the commons, that one.