Animal Magnetism
I’ve got it. Unfortunately, it only works on deer.
(clickable photo)
Oddly enough, I was driving below the speed limit with my high beams on looking for the little buggers. The one responsible here, in an apparent suicide attempt, jumped out of the woods on the right mere feet before my bumper. I never even had time to apply the brakes. After the venison collision, bambi skid and spun itself – breakdance style – across the roadway to the opposite shoulder, where it got up and skidaddled off into the woods. Although it ran away, I’m sure it bedded down nearby and died a slow and painful death. And some people think hunting is cruel.
In case anyone is counting, that’s deer number 6 and collision event number 3 for me.
The collision was this past Monday night (technically Tuesday morning), But as I still have this staring at me from a tab in Firefox on Saturday, so let me see I can finish this post up. I’ve got a few things I want to say but somehow they are not forming coherent paragraphs. Maybe I’ll try a bulleted list:
- Deer population levels are at epidemic levels. The state knows it has a deer population problem but does little to try to alleviate them. They could lower hunting license fees for out-of-state hunters, extend the season, or open up more land to hunting but the state does none of those things.
- Maryland bans the use of modern rifles for the harvesting of deer in the very counties that have the worse overpopulation problem. The firearm hunting season is a mere 17 days per year.
- The places with the very worst overpopulation problem have almost no legal areas open to public hunting.
- Development is good for deer population (or in our case, overpopulation), When developers cut down trees and plant lawns, leaving tree buffer zones along the lowlands and creeks, they actually create more deer habitat. Deer are edge feeders. That means that they live in the forest and feed in pastures.
- Most doe give birth to two offspring every year. That means that the population nearly doubles every spring.
- A stressed whitetail population is far more susceptible to sickness and parasites such as Chronic Wasting Disease, or Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease.
In addition, perhaps someone could explain to me how the state can own the population of whitetail deer, create rules and regulations regarding the hunting of those deer (enforcible even on private property), and then not take responsibility for the crop damage or auto collisions the state owned herd cause even when it could be shown that the state is grossly mismanaging the public herd? Maybe we need to send in the tobacco lawyers?
Also, I’d like to extend a very special message to the eco-wack anti-hunt meat-is-murder love-your-mother nutjobs. You know, the type of person who would seriously argue for the proposal of “seeding” the ocean with iron to boost phytoplankton growth in an effort to combat global warming, Or would claim to understand the need for forest fires in the lifecycle of redwood trees, or the type of person who is more than willing to volunteer to put up bluebird nesting boxes in national parks in an effort to improve the habitat of these types of birds, but never less is vehemently opposed to responsible wildlife management principles that not only save the lives of people in the type of auto collisions that I keep having, but also feed the homeless and hungry and result in a healthier whitetail population. In addition, hunting teaches responsible firearm ownership and is the only management tool that actually adds money to the state coffers rather than ending up as red budget ink.
I know that you don’t like seeing the cute little bambi thingys killed, but it’s time to set your emotional knee-jerk reactions aside and be a responsible steward of the earth, like you claim to want to be.
Philip L. Welch Says :
Isn’t two offspring per female considered replacement rate, which simply maintains a net zero population growth? (Considering that 1 out of 2 deer is a doe, if each doe gives birth to two fawns, we have 2 young deer for each 2 older deer who are about to die.) Or do deer have a greater-than-one-generation life expectancy that significantly changes this?
2007-10-06 23:49 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Doe usually birth two offspring each and every year that they are fertile. I don’t think that there are many female deer out there past menopause, though I assume it’s possible.
My statement is somewhat misleading because the population is controlled throughout the year by the whitetail’s natural predator, the SUV. There’s also starvation over winter, hunters, parasites, and in some cases the very young are taken by eastern coyotes or black bears.
We’ve killed off almost all of the eastern great cats.
Google says that the life expectancy is something like six to 14 years.
2007-10-07 00:04 PermalinkTD Says :
I have a friend who’s hit three deer here in Michigan in the last year. No one will get in a car with her anymore.
2007-10-07 15:52 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Don’t they have Moose up there in Michigan? I’d choose a deer to hit over a moose any day.
I’d tell her to buy a truck, but the collision before this one involved two deer that tried to clear a 6.5 foot high suburban. The one that made it and escaped also knocked out two (expensive) side windows. The one that stayed for dinner hit the intersection of the drivers door, the roof, and the front glass. I was inches away from having yearling buck in my lap.
I found that it’s far cheaper to score used side glass and risk installing it yourself. However, the front glass is replaced so often that bidding the job out to a pro is only a few bucks extra over doing it yourself (and it’s their fault if it breaks during installation.)
2007-10-07 18:59 PermalinkLaurel Says :
Despite growing up in the northern Sierra foothills of California, then relocating to the rolling hills of northern Idaho, I have yet to hit a deer. I’ve actually never hit anything – and managed to avoid coming very close. I attribute this largely to driving large, noisy vehicles… I think they can probably hear me coming a little better. Of course, you mentioned creaming a couple in a Suburban, so maybe I’m just lucky!
Also, nice outline/rant about mismanagement of populations. That’s one reason I am pro-hunting. Like it or not, we are at the top of the food chain, and our place there has depleted or destroyed a lot of the natural controls on game animal populations. I believe it is our responsibility to humanely harvest animals, thereby sparing them from diseases related to overpopulation, starvation, or vehicle-induced deaths, which are not only wasteful resource-wise, but likely to be slow and painful for the animal.
Maryland should also consider increasing bag limits or opening a doe season, if you don’t already have one. I definitely think a longer season is in order for y’all – ours is 10/10 to 12/1!
2007-10-10 01:47 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
I ought to post that story in a day or so. I’ve also got a few more photos and a graphic of road kill from a nearby county to show and tell (it’s a graphic, but it’s not graphic – it’s a map with red dots on it).
2007-10-10 11:34 PermalinkStandard Mischief » Kate Middleton goes hunting, and I critique the press and PETA Says :
[...] Yup, it’s far better, according to PETA, to let the deer herd grow out of control. Then commuters like me can hit and cripple the deer, causing a slow and painful death and quite a bit of car damage too. [...]
2008-03-28 12:54 Permalink