Kinda like how man decides to vote and how those repercussions resonate in many ways a person hadn’t considered.
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Well… there was once a day that man had to compete with the predators to feed his own family… So there were actually two apex predators hunting at the same time.
This is pre- grocery store kinda man.
When man started farming… and profiting from crops… and livestock…and barbed wire was invented… he no longer had to hunt.
Man did not want to share his bounty with the predators anymore… so they were erradicated… so that he could be selfish with his bounty.
He found out that without the natural predators… that the herbivores boomed in population… so again…man had to hunt.
Fast forward… today. Predators erradicated… hunting is too much work or even illegal…
Herbivores have no check to their population… and are now ‘pretty’ to those that shop at grocery stores and dont garden or farm or have orchards.
Bunny Rabbits and Deer and Squirrels are welcome in the average citizens yard… even fed.
Bambi is good… The Big Bad Wolf is bad.
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Before white folks showed up in North America, there weren’t many deer to begin with. Whitetails aren’t creatures of mature forests. When mature forests were harvested for lumber to build houses, forest composition changed in a positive way for whitetail numbers to increase.
Humans kept those deer numbers in check via market hunting. Once folks figured out that humans could hunt animals into extinction or nearly so, regulations were put into place to prevent that from happening.
I don’t believe non-human predators ever kept whitetail deer numbers “in check” because there never were enough deer to be kept “in check”.
It would seem to me that many people who struggle with deer are living in areas where laws have been written to protect deer from hunting because hunting is “mean” and all animals have the same “rights” as humans. There really is no secret to controlling deer numbers. Allow and encourage hunting of non-antlered (female) deer. Institute rules that require a hunter to harvest a female deer (or two) before they can shoot a buck (earn a buck).
When I first bought this acreage, this area had a deer population goal of 12 deer per square mile. The area was under that goal at the time, with 8-10 deer PSM. Hunters had reduced the herd to a below DNR goal. It’s easily done. It just requires public acceptance and encouragement for hunting.
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thats alot of deer per square acre. its less than 1 here.
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10 deer per square mile is .016 deer per acre. That’s not a lot of deer.
A lot of deer is 120+ deer per square mile. That’s what much of suburban America is dealing with.
This area is now pushing 30 deer PSM. That’s probably too many and I imagine a wicked winter or two will soon bring those numbers down.
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Some statistics say that Native American populations could have been as high as 18 million. Some statistics say that the Native Americans were here for 20000 years before us.
Even with room to spare… me thinks that a few deer were harvested in that time frame.
Deer also had to compete with Bison who had numbers of likely 60 million and unknown numbers of other herbivores…
Also there were likely half a million wolves also feeding.
So yeah…pre-white people… deer were kept in check by a few things.
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Of course there were. There were not populations of whitetail deer anywhere near what we currently have however. There were many more elk and moose in many more areas than they currently exist as well. Some species do very well and proliferate due to “progress”, some don’t.
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For what I remember reading, in 1900 the estimated deer population was half a million. In 2000 the population is estimated at 25 million.
It is a combination of factors, chief among them that we didn’t really take away habitat but that we created the perfect habitat for deer; small tracks of trees with wide expanses of grass, with lots of foraging opportunities both wild and from garden produce.
Honestly the biggest problem is that people refuse to allow Bambi to get eaten. Maryland had a huge deer population problem. A few years back they finally relented and decided to allow some very limited hunting, and paid the police a lot of overtime to spend time in the woods keeping an eye out on them peoples with them gunz…
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Luckily we have lots of raptors here like bald eagles and owls to keep pests like rodents under control. Crows were getting to be an annoyance here until a neighbor told me a neat trick. Download some recordings of owls screeching, and play them on max volume on your cell phone and watch the crows scatter. I never thought it would work, but it sure does.Now that a couple of owls have taken up residence close by the crows don’t hang around as much as they used to.
Perhaps I need some recordings of mountain lions blaring on speakers at night to terrify the deer. 
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sorry. meant square mile.
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It was probably 30 years ago give or take but i remember on the news and in newspapers they predicted in my state that a ton of deer would starve to death during winter due to such high populations…they were urging hunters to harvest more… urging more people to hunt that wouldnt normally hunt…longer season as well. I may have some of those facts wrong but i do remember it.
I think today if the same exact story came out they would urge people to feed them instead… probably cause a few gofundme operations to help feed them. Probably have volunteers come in and hand feed them. #feedthedeer
some people say im negative…but the world i live in is messed up a little.
Im not a geneticist but i think if all that you kill are the strongest smartest bucks with the biggest horns and the weaker dumb ones get to breed… that u end up with dumber tamer ones that seem to have no fear or maybe not enough brains to stay out of peoples gardens and orchards.
Maybe we are domesticating them by harvesting the alpha males…idk.
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Deer around here haven’t been harvested in the city for decades, and bucks will let people get within a couple yards before they move, if then. Even does with fawns are seen fairly close to people, and I know of one doe who got threatening when people came to close to her fawn. My wife got mad at me a couple of years ago because I wouldn’t let her pass too close to a rutting buck hot on the trail, and this was in the middle of town.
One consequence of allowing that many deer in town is that they’ll eventually attract young cougar who are looking for a territory.
This shot was taken out our living room window:
And this was taken our our bedroom window:
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Managed hunting is good for the environment. Overpopulation of deer destroys the forest floor, destroying the habitat for a lot of other species that then become endangered. When you see a deer in winter eating bark you know that they have razed everything else and are starving to death.
Bears; the best way to raise the population is through hunting. Males will hunt down and kill baby bears just to free the females for mating. Hunting takes the males out allowing for the population to grow.
Same thing with the balance of wolves and moose. Nature is not kind; populations can go through booms and busts and sometimes they don’t recover. When there are too many wolves moose limits go up and wolf limits down. When there are too many mooses the opposite happens.
Heck I hate it that the tanner crab fishery in Homer is closed. The problem is that Fish and Wildlife do not have the resources to monitor the population so because we don’t know, they are not allowed to be fished. That sucks but it is better than risking crashing the population.
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I’m what I’d call a realist
The world is indeed messed up a little, but push comes to shove it’s the world we have. Enjoy yourself and the time you have here or don’t…it’s up to each of us. I choose to enjoy life.
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The funny thing is that measuring by world hunger and life expectancy the world has been getting better and better. On those measurements we are doing better than ever.
Largely we are experiencing a contraction on the standard of living of the first world. We just have been spoiled for a very long time.
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Agreed.
Thanks for the memes about me calling me a downer and negative.
You guys have really changed my perspective on the current situation of things.
We all need to care a little less and be happier about the way things are.
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True to a point, but sometimes if you can remove the ones that are eating the fruit, the new animals may be skittish enough not to get the fruit. I had some raccoons and opossums get my fruit the first couple of years. But after trapping, the new animals are there but seem to not like getting into the garden, with the dogs close by but not in the garden. Deer did the same thing, except others hunted the original deer, the new ones would get close but not jump the garden fence. Can’t let the dogs in the actual garden because they cause damage to the trees also. I have 4 Dobermans. What works really depends on how much deer/raccoon pressure you have. A really hungry animal will try almost anything.
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Yep. I’ve removed 3 of the apple eating 'coons this year. No more damage to my trees since then. I’m sure some more may move in again, but I’ll be ready to remove them too if that happens.
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Great advice. I will make sure to do that.