Re: Sibley on birds and windows

Dave F wrote:
"Lanny Chambers" <lanny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:lanny-9F2ABE.12031327112007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <z1X2j.20946$L%6.15507@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Eric Miller <millereric_nospam_@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This happens often in my state, Louisiana, which results in
local hunting groups pressuring their state representatives to pressure
the wildlife management agencies to make rules that are not
scientifically sound.
Fortunately, the citizens of Missouri long ago removed wildlife
management from the legislature's fickle grasp. Instead, conservation
policy is directed by a non-political commission that represents all
stakeholder groups and is guided by science. It works very, very well.

Hunters who kill only the strongest and fittest of deer for
their trophy value and then criticize those who kill the weaker, younger
and less developed deer are the real problem IMO.
It's largely a matter of the ethics imparted by family members while
learning to hunt. Back when deer were practically extirpated by market
hunters, it made sense to protect does and younger bucks so herds could
recover. We're gradually overcoming that traditional but outdated bias
through hunter education and regulations that encourage the harvest of
does. A hunter gets only one buck per season, but in many parts of the
state can purchase as many antlerless deer permits as he wants.

An increasingly frustrating problem is McMansion owners who think every
deer is Bambi, yet complain about the damage they cause to gardens. They
propose relocation and birth control, neither of which works, instead of
allowing bowhunters to thin their local populations (of deer, not
homeowners, though it gets one thinking...).

I am not a hunter, but I understand and respect the role of hunting as
an important and cost-effective wildlife management tool.

--
Lanny Chambers
St. Louis, MO

Sorry, but you posted a bunch of....crap.

It's a shame that they didn't explain to you that it's the deer hunting and population management policies that actually cause the rise in deer population. This problem is caused by a small group of PEOPLE interfering with nature for their own benefit, and lying to the general public in order to maintain their fun.

Most people have no idea what hunting is really about. They do what most average people do, and pass along what they've heard from their daddy, brother, or buddy with no scientific knowledge to back it up.

Deer hunting as it's practiced today only serves to maintain herds at their current size or increase them for the benefit of hunters, not decrease them or manage them for the benefit of the deer themselves as claimed by hunters.

All wild animals have evolved means of limiting their population in proportion to the food available to them. Otherwise the earth would have been overrun eons ago.

When a certain number of a species has been removed by predation, the remaining animals will replace them next time around. When predation is particularly heavy, as in deer hunting, they will even overadapt and produce surplus offspring as insurance.

Without hunting, deer populations stabilize themselves based upon the amount of food and water present, land available, and natural mortalities. When conditions are bad, deer respond with decreased pregnancies, and death among the weakest members. Within these conditions, there is no increase in the size of the population. The herd remains stable and healthy. This is how nature regulates wild animal populations. However, when hunting is introduced to a stable deer herd, everything is thrown out of balance. When a large number of deer is removed from a herd, competition for food, water, space and breeding opportunities is reduced. The reaction of the herd to the sudden kill is increased breeding. With plenty of food to go around, more does are likely to get pregnant, and twin and triplet births often occur. This added nutrition will also allow new born fawns to gain enough weight by the time they are 6 months old to become pregnant. Normally, they would wait 2 to 3 years. This new, high birth rate not only replaces those that were killed, but it adds significantly to the size of the total population.

This has ben proven countless times in studies nationwide. This is also what happens under the same circumstances with countless other species. This is pure science and fact. What grandpa told you when you were sittin' on his knee, or your cousin' Billy Bob hen you were drinkin' a beer out back on the porch doesn't mean a damn thing if you live in the real world.

Deer hunters do not kill the sick and weak deer, they go for the big strong bucks with as many antler points as possible. Despite what hunters say, these bucks are not old, but are usually only 2-3 years of age which can be found out by the condition of their teeth. They do not kill the does because an amputated doe head does not look as cool as a buck's head with large antlers....to a neanderthal. They kill mostly bucks. This practice is not mimicking the natural selection process. Without human interference there would be approximately one doe for every buck. Now, there are almost eight does for every buck. As deer are not monogamous, the stage is deliberately set for a population boom.

Using NJ as an example of how ridiculous the "deer management" arguement is, and how hunting is truly a joke, the population of deer in NJ at the turn of the 20th century was almost zero. Deer were introduced for "sport". Due to the so called proper "management" policies that some seem to think are necessary and work so well, deer population has done nothing but grow and grow to it's current level of 150,000. 60,000 deer will be killed this hunting season, all to be replaced as described above by next year (and increased). The hunters can then once again promote their decades long failed "management policy" which is truly just a ridiculous excuse for them to go out in the woods and get their jollies killing animals.

By its' nature, shooting an arrow into a living target is an inaccurate and vicious way to kill that animal. In fact, bow hunting is centered on wounding the creature who then bleeds to death. Hunting magazines are full of articles that teach bow hunters the rules of the game, such as when they should begin to track an animal that they just pierced with an arrow:

"The rule of thumb has long been that we should wait 30 to 45 minutes on heart and lung hits, an hour or more on a suspected liver hit, eight to 12 hours on paunch hits, and that we should follow up immediately on hindquarter and other muscle hits, "to keep the wound open and bleeding"." Glenn Helgeland - Fins and Feathers Winter 1987.

"For a bow hunter to easily recover a wounded deer, the blood loss must be extensive. A deer will have to lose at least 35 percent of its total blood volume for the hunter to recover it rapidly." Rob Wegner - Deer and Deer Hunting August, 1991.

It is horrifying to think of any living creature dying in such a slow, painful way, What makes this nightmare so much worse is that it happens to hundreds of thousands of deer in our country every year. The documented wounding rates that bow hunters inflict upon deer are appalling. In their report "An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey" (p.25) the NJ Division of Fish and Game documented the percentage of deer that bow hunters shoot but do not eventually find:

"Langenau (1986) found that archery deer hunters were estimated to have retrieved 43% of the deer hit by arrows..."

The state agency that promotes and supports hunting admits that bow hunters do not find 57% of the deer that they wound. In the 1998-99 hunting season, bow hunters killed 20,975 deer. The 57% wounding rate for hunting with bow and arrow means that another 11,956 deer were shot and wounded. Some of these wounded animals made their ways to roads where they were hit by cars. Others, no longer capable of feeding themselves, starved.

Bow hunting is barbaric entertainment that best deserves to reside in the dark ages, not in the 21st century and not in a country that deems itself humane.

In the 1998-99 deer hunting season, shotgun hunters killed 29,189 deer. Taking the 19% wounding rate into account, an additional 5,546 deer were shot and left to die in the woods.

Most of the information cited here comes directly from the New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, (Fish and Game). For over 100 years, Fish and Game has had complete authority over NJ wildlife. Along with the Fish and Game Council, they create the hunting seasons and decide how many animals should be killed.

The salaries of Fish and Game employees are paid for by the sale of hunting licenses. Fish and Game must sell over $11,000,000 worth of hunting licenses just to cover their salaries and benefits. It is for this reason that they must ensure that there is an abundant supply of animals for hunters to kill. This is the tragedy of it all, the very organization that should be protecting our wildlife makes its money from their slaughter. Despite the claims of hunters, NJ Fish and Game has yet to buy one acre of land to preserve open spaces.

Fish and Game clearly stated their intent in their 1990 report titled: An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey .

"Deer were re-established in New Jersey by sportsmen-conservationists for the purpose of sport hunting. Since that "restocking period" the responsible agency (now the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife) has been managing the deer resource for this purpose." (pg.7)

Also, on one hand, Fish and Game claims deer hunting is necessary because there are no natural predators, yet with the other hand they collect the fees from the licenses sold to kill the natural predators. New Jersey's coyotes, like deer, have been targeted for recreational killing. NJ has both hunting and trapping season for this natural predator. One of the reasons they are being killed is that many hunters see coyotes as competitors for deer.

To sum up, deer hunting actually stimulates reproduction and has been an atrocious failure nationwide in it's so called management of the deer population. It causes slow, painful, horrific death to hundreds of thousands of deer nationwide. Collisions with cars are on the rise. Hunters perpetuate a myth that what they are doing is necessary and good for the deer. This is simply an excuse for them to go out and do what gives them pleasure......killing.

I will say that some hunters actually believe they are doing something good, and they try to do it in a humane way. No doubt. Where they fail to escape ridicule is that they don't bother to do extensive factual research before going out into the woods and deciding what lives, what suffers, and what dies. Ignorance is not an excuse.

Deer hunting could gradually be phased out over the next five to ten years by no longer allowing a 40% slaughter of the herds each year. By gradually decreasing the amount of deer which are allowed to be killed each hunting season, the herds would be eventually be allowed to once again stabilize themselves naturally. Problem is, a lot of people won't like all that money lost, and they won't like being told they can't get their jollies killing animals out in the woods.

The good news is that despite the annual rise in U.S. population, the number of hunters is decreasing each year. New methods of effective birth control and it's delivery have been developed. They will continue to be developed and refined, and eventually, despite the best efforts to block their use, will be used to humanely rectify what the deer hunters have done to the deer population in this country.

Dave




Gee I wonder how many deer several million acres of corn and beans, not
to mention wheat, would support. Here in the Midwest I don't think food
would be a limiting factor. At least not until the harvest. Wonder what
would happen to all of the deer then?

gls858
.

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