Deer Debate

[Hunter]

If you have an opinion about the current state of Pennsylvania’s whitetail deer population or you just want to read the words of others who do then read this blog and get one man’s perspective on the subject. http://www.storytrax.com/node/1068

I hunt deer and drive rural roads daily. During both activities, I see less deer. I have killed deer during hunting season with a rifle and at other times by accident with my car. The cost of doing both is on the rise. Hunters and the Pennsylvania Game Commission are at odds about deer management objectives. Where do you stand?

[This is me]

Hunting is a valid way to control the deer population.

[Peace to all species]

Many animals suffer prolonged, painful deaths when they are injured but not killed by hunters. A member of the Maine Bowhunters Alliance estimates that 50 percent of animals who are shot with crossbows are wounded but not killed.(7) A study of 80 radio-collared white-tailed deer found that of the 22 deer who had been shot with “traditional archery equipment,” 11 were wounded but not recovered by hunters (10) A British study of deer hunting found that 11 percent of deer who’d been killed by hunters died only after being shot two or more times and that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes before dying.(11)

The delicate balance of ecosystems ensures their own survival—if they are left unaltered. Natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest individuals. Hunters, however, kill any animal whom they would like to hang over the fireplace—including large, healthy animals who are needed to keep the population strong. Elephant poaching is believed to have increased the number of tuskless animals in Africa, and in Canada, hunting has caused bighorn sheep’s horn size to fall by 25 percent in the last 40 years; Nature magazine reports that “the effect on the populations’ genetics is probably deeper.”(17)

Even when unusual natural occurrences cause overpopulation, natural processes work to stabilize the group. Starvation and disease can be tragic, but they are nature’s ways of ensuring that healthy, strong animals survive and maintain the strength level of the rest of their herd or group. Shooting an animal because he or she might starve or become sick is arbitrary and destructive.

“Sport” hunting not only jeopardizes nature’s balance, it also exacerbates other problems. For example, the transfer of captive-bred deer and elk between states for the purpose of hunting is believed to have contributed to the epidemic spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD). As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given state wildlife agencies millions of dollars to “manage” deer and elk populations.(18) The fatal neurological illness that affects these animals has been likened to mad cow disease, and while the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that CWD has no relationship to any similar diseases that affect humans or farmed animals, the slaughter of deer and elk continues.(19,20)

4) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,“National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife—Associated Recreation”(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2001) 5.
7) Stephen S. Ditchkoff et al.,“Wounding Rates of White-Tailed Deer With Traditional Archery Equipment,” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (1998).
10) E.L. Bradshaw and P. Bateson,“Welfare Implications of Culling Red Deer (Cervus Elaphus),” Animal Welfare 9 (2000): 3-24.
11) John Swinconeck,“Controlled Hunt May Be Solution to the Excess of ‘Deer at Our Doorstep,’” York County Coast Star 27 Jun. 2002.
17) John Whitfield,“Sheep Horns Downsized by Hunters’ Taste for Trophies,” Nature 426 (2003): 595.
18) U.S. Department of Agriculture,“USDA Makes $4 Million Available to State Wildlife Agencies for Strengthening Chronic Wasting Disease Management,” news release, 15 Apr. 2003.
19) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services,“Chronic Wasting Disease,” Nov. 2002.
20) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Media Relations,“Fatal Degenerative Neurologic Illnesses in Men Who Participated in Wild Game Feasts—Wisconsin, 2002,” news release, Feb. 2003.