Deer Population Flourishes in the Millions
I heard on ABC news this morning that the deer population has gone from 330 thousand to 30 million deer. The news had video coverage of deer walking right inside the door of a house and jumping through a picture window. There was video after video of deer in homes and businesses in different urban areas too. The question was to shoot or not to shoot?
The deer invading everything from homes to yards to downtown stores are usually young deer that don’t know any better and have no fear of humans. Consider also that one village with homeowners up in arms over deer munching on their landscapes has a population of only 20,000 that decided to live in an area with 2,000 deer. So who is invading whose territory?
And why are we eradicating natural predators like wolves? Seems like we’re not going about this right. We have the wolf depicted as a ravenous carnivore that threatens a dwindling DEER and elk population, as well as, people, children, and pets. Except the deer are hardly dwindling. There are more than enough deer to go around for double the wolf population. Wait until the coyotes follow the deer. Wolves keep coyotes down too.
Simple solutions have been offered to use a speaker instead of a gun for both deer and wolves. Deer have a keen sense of hearing, and certain tones will repel them. Wolves honor another wolf’s call over territory. A strange wolf call will repel them.
A speaker system, instead of a gun to kill what we deem invaders, seems like the sanest solution for now, at least until we figure out who the real invaders are.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5478591&page=1