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Thursday, October 7, 2010

Wildlife


As much as I enjoy watching the deer that roam my neighborhood, I think their time has come. I don't live close enough to benefit, but Valley Forge National Park in our region will be thinning the herd that roams there from 1,277 to 185. Naturally, animal rights groups are protesting. Their efforts would be better spent trying to develop birth control and implement its use to prevent the overpopulation of deer. I support the efforts of park management  to maintain some balance in nature. When deer overpopulate, they eat so much that they impact the environment for other animals and other animal populations decrease as a result of  their altered habitats.  The deer will be harvested by sharp shooters, dressed for meat, and used for food. I have eaten venison and it is a tasty meat when cooked properly. It is the natural food chain. Deer hunting is legal in the state and most of the hunting is done in isolated areas to be used as food. The hunting in state parks will occur during the state hunting season.  

The deer have no natural predators and only cars thin the herd. A close encounter between a deer and a car results in a dead deer and a total destruction of the car usually, not to mention occasional great injury to the occupants of the car. Deer that are road kill are never harvested to feed anyone. Mayhem on the roads is the least desirable solution to the over-population. They are breeding almost as abundantly as rabbits and the numbers spiral out of control. They carry deer ticks which result in Lyme disease for humans, which my family has already experienced first hand. One can have Lyme more than once which is a constant concern. They eat any vegetation they can reach and destroy yards, gardens and future tree growth.

I love the story Bambi, but I grew up close to nature in the forties and fifties where animals were food. We ate chickens, ducks, rabbits, pork, beef and fish. We would have harvested sheep and goats if they were in the area. To me, it is no different to eat deer just because someone wrote a wonderful story about a baby deer called Bambi. The deer are beautiful to look at, but no one goes around the yard picking up their waste matter with plastic bags or killing their ticks. When we moved to our present home twenty five years ago, there were no deer for over ten years. Suddenly they started showing up when there was a lot of development on farmlands nearby. Now I can sometimes count over a dozen on the property.  Birth control efforts are preferable, but has not been developed or widely used. I would like to see more governmental efforts to control this situation. I have requested this in our area, but so far, the problem has been ignored and it is only increasing, not disappearing. Meanwhile, my yard smells like a horse barn and forget enjoying the yard for gardening or recreation.

7 comments:

  1. Please excuse my ignorance - don't you eat deer in the States? Venison is quite a pricey meat over here and a real treat. When I lived in Africa we ate deer all the time. Surely you eat it there too?

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  2. Yes, people in the states eat deer when it is available but that means they either have to hunt for it themselves or know someone who does. In this area, I have never seen it commercially available. Perhaps I could find it for sale on the Internet through a meat supply house. It isn't legal to hunt deer within a certain range of housing developments however. I would have to drive two hours north to the mountains to hunt deer and have a state license as well as a gun or bow and arrow. It does seem a shame that there are so many available, but not a good way to harvest them. This is why I feel local governments need to take charge of the situation. I don't want it to be dangerous or for people to be hunting at all hours in my neighborhood with guns, but anytime govt. tries to set up a sensible way to thin the herds, the activists get in the way and stop it in court. The hunt that I mentioned in the park has already been delayed in the courts by a year. It is a problem that needs an answer and someone to step up to the plate, no pun intended. As a citizen, I can't legally hunt them on my property which is in a housing development, nor will the local township do anything about the problem. I have sent them a letter requesting action and it has been ignored.

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  3. many years ago i was driving and a huge buck ran into the SIDE of my car, totaled the car, i was not hurt badly thank goodness but he ran back into the woods. i was terrified. it is very dangerous.

    smiles, bee
    xoxoxoxoxooxox

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  4. During mating season in the fall, the bucks are very aggressive and one charged the car my son was driving on one occasion. My son sped away, but there was a dent in the bumper where he hit one of the horns. I have seen bucks on the property where half the antlers are missing. They rub them off on the trunks of the trees and remove the bark of the trees. Insects get into the tree and it dies. They are very destructive animals. I still appreciate their beauty but I also appreciate balance in nature.

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  5. We have a few deer here, but they must thin out naturally, because in the three years we have been here in the Pacific Northwest, I've seen very few fawns. I didn't know they were harvested anywhere for meat, but Madamebutterfly says different. Good idea to control them somehow.

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  6. Me again - sorry your reply just amazed me. Over here in the UK, in the large parks, deer are culled (by licensed hunters) at least once a year. But they are also farmed commercially. Its coming up to hunting season (if it hasn't already started) and I always like a hearty venison stew... (available in all butchers and the supermarkets)

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  7. Madamebutterfly, thanks for another perspective from another part of the world. Sometimes I think this "democracy" of ours needs a little tinkering and a lot of common sense. Sometimes our laws need to prioritize better. In fixing one problem, we create another. I'm also annoyed by the First Amendment rights that fundamentalists use alongside their religion freedom rights to picket at funerals of soldiers. That one is going to the Supreme Court and I would lay odds that the First Amendment rights and Religious Freedom rights will trump common decency. Growl, groan.

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