Did you get your deer yet? It’s a common question around Vermont these days. Trees are bare, snow is common, if not ubiquitous; driving on rural roads, one often sees men dressed in camouflage and blaze orange out walking, rifles slung from their shoulders. It’s easy to imagine a small insurrection is under way.
There are fewer hunters in Vermont than there once were, mostly due to shifting demographics. Some people here are opposed to hunting, but there’s little public debate. Anyone who’s hit a deer with their car, or even had a near miss, may think kind thoughts when it’s time to thin the herd. Problem is, the herd is not getting thin. All up and down the east coast, the deer population is exploding into city parks and suburban back yards. The U.S. now has more deer than ever, as far as we can tell.
Prior to European settlement, America’s deer population was kept in check by thick forests covering the east. Deer thrive on plants that grow in open meadows. What deer there were were preyed upon by wolves, mountain lions and, of course, humans. When the white folks showed up and started cutting all the trees, the deer population increased exponentially. This was considered a boon, since boatloads of hungry Europeans arrived every year. Killing off the wolves and mountain lions and Native Americans only meant more venison for the westward-expanding settlers.
Thanks to the emerging American “can-do” spirit, the settlers could not leave well enough alone. We didn’t just cut down some forest, we cut down all the forests, and while deer need open space to forage, they also need the cover of woods, to get away from the people with guns. By the middle of the 19th century, the deer population in the east had plummeted. In these years, however, agricultural production was shifting to the west and the eastern forests re-emerged, reclaiming abandoned farms. By the 1930s, with a re-established deer population and the hardship of the Depression, eastern states began to allow deer hunts for the first time in decades.
Since then? Well, we’ve pushed our tract housing further and further into the country. We’ve warmed the planet with carbon dioxide, meaning milder winters with more available forage. And when we hunt, we usually hunt for bucks. For one thing, hunters like the trophy racks to hang over the garage door or on the wall in the den. There’s also some sentimentality involved – I’ve seen land posted “No Doe Hunting.” Maybe people don’t want to see mommy deer killed. That’s a problem, because if does and bucks are in equal number, they’ll pair up and have an average of two fawns each. Thirty bucks and 30 does will make 60 fawns, replacing themselves. But if there are more does than bucks, a single buck may inseminate as many as 30 does, so one buck and 30 does can produce 60 fawns and you can see how that might lead to a doubling and tripling of the deer population and finally a small herd in your side yard wiping out the rhododendra.
What should we do? We should revise our state fish and wildlife regulations to increase the doe kill, but that’s unpopular with hunters, with the tourist industry that serves them and with people who oppose hunting as a barbaric practice. Finally, something they can all agree on.
One thing is clear: when humans – at least humans from Northern Europe – enter an ecosystem, they change it. Since we can’t put things back they way they were, we should at least try to use our evolutionary advantage – that is, our brains – to try to keep things from going completely haywire.
The Buck Stops Here
Did you get your deer yet? It’s a common question around Vermont these days. Trees are bare, snow is common, if not ubiquitous; driving on rural roads, one often sees men dressed in camouflage and blaze orange out walking, rifles slung from their shoulders. It’s easy to imagine a small insurrection is under way.
There are fewer hunters in Vermont than there once were, mostly due to shifting demographics. Some people here are opposed to hunting, but there’s little public debate. Anyone who’s hit a deer with their car, or even had a near miss, may think kind thoughts when it’s time to thin the herd. Problem is, the herd is not getting thin. All up and down the east coast, the deer population is exploding into city parks and suburban back yards. The U.S. now has more deer than ever, as far as we can tell.
Prior to European settlement, America’s deer population was kept in check by thick forests covering the east. Deer thrive on plants that grow in open meadows. What deer there were were preyed upon by wolves, mountain lions and, of course, humans. When the white folks showed up and started cutting all the trees, the deer population increased exponentially. This was considered a boon, since boatloads of hungry Europeans arrived every year. Killing off the wolves and mountain lions and Native Americans only meant more venison for the westward-expanding settlers.
Thanks to the emerging American “can-do” spirit, the settlers could not leave well enough alone. We didn’t just cut down some forest, we cut down all the forests, and while deer need open space to forage, they also need the cover of woods, to get away from the people with guns. By the middle of the 19th century, the deer population in the east had plummeted. In these years, however, agricultural production was shifting to the west and the eastern forests re-emerged, reclaiming abandoned farms. By the 1930s, with a re-established deer population and the hardship of the Depression, eastern states began to allow deer hunts for the first time in decades.
Since then? Well, we’ve pushed our tract housing further and further into the country. We’ve warmed the planet with carbon dioxide, meaning milder winters with more available forage. And when we hunt, we usually hunt for bucks. For one thing, hunters like the trophy racks to hang over the garage door or on the wall in the den. There’s also some sentimentality involved – I’ve seen land posted “No Doe Hunting.” Maybe people don’t want to see mommy deer killed. That’s a problem, because if does and bucks are in equal number, they’ll pair up and have an average of two fawns each. Thirty bucks and 30 does will make 60 fawns, replacing themselves. But if there are more does than bucks, a single buck may inseminate as many as 30 does, so one buck and 30 does can produce 60 fawns and you can see how that might lead to a doubling and tripling of the deer population and finally a small herd in your side yard wiping out the rhododendra.
What should we do? We should revise our state fish and wildlife regulations to increase the doe kill, but that’s unpopular with hunters, with the tourist industry that serves them and with people who oppose hunting as a barbaric practice. Finally, something they can all agree on.
One thing is clear: when humans – at least humans from Northern Europe – enter an ecosystem, they change it. Since we can’t put things back they way they were, we should at least try to use our evolutionary advantage – that is, our brains – to try to keep things from going completely haywire.