From: jsemrad@ems.cdc.com (Joe Semrad)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Self Regulating Populations
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:52:29 GMT
Reply-To: jsemrad@ems.cdc.com
Organization: Empros Systems International, a division of CDC


Note:  Due to some transient problems at my site and/or the possibility I
forgot to set the Distribution correctly, I'm not sure this article made it out
the first time I posted it, so I am reposting it.  My apologies if you are
seeing it for a second time.


In article <Btv5Bv.9zH@wpg.com>, russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
|>
|> Russell Lawrence writes:
|> rl> It seems to me that it takes a lot of courage for an animal to
|> rl> stand and kick rather than turn tail and run away.  Yet this same
|> rl> courage not to run away is regarded as a sign of stupidity among
|> rl> human hunters.  Why is it "courageous" for a deer to stay-put in
|> rl> confrontations with wolves, but "stupid" for a deer to stay-put
|> rl> in confrontations with humans?
|>
|> Joe Semrad writes:
|> js> Projecting those human qualities on to the deer, eh Russell?
|> js>
|> js> What makes you think that fear and courage are uniquely human
|> js> qualities?
|>

Please note that the above sentence is Russell's, not mine.

|> In article <21677@nntp_server.ems.cdc.com>, by jsemrad@ems.cdc.com (Joe Semra
d):
|> js> What makes you think deer understand the concept of "courage" or
|> js> "stupidity"?
|>
|> I didn't claim that deer understand the concepts of "fear",
|> "courage", or "stupidity".  Whether a feeling/thinking individual
|> understands such concepts or not, however, doesn't diminish their
|> capacity to experience fear, or to overcome fear by acting
|> courageously, or to respond either intelligently or stupidly to a
|> given sequence of events.
|>

The deer's behaviour is stupid or courageous only as it is evaluated by
humans.  My point was that you were projecting those qualities onto the
deer by evaluating their behaviour in a certain fashion.  I choose
to evaluate it in a different, perhaps less emotional fashion.  I can admire
a deer that successfully avoids death from whatever threat but I wouldn't
call it courageous as I don't think deer have the mental capacity to be
courageous.  Remember, the deer is just trying to survive the best it can.

BTW, you still haven't said (for the second time) whether you consider a
deer to be stupid or courageous if it stands its ground in a fight with a wolf
and and becomes canis lupus lunchmeat.  I'm interested because you seem
(by your statement/question above) to automatically consider a deer that
stands its ground courageous and one that runs stupid.  All I'm asking is
whether you still think that if the choice ultimately proves to be the wrong
one.

[ More stuff about deer being courageous or stupid deleted ]

|>
|> > ...
|> rl> Can deer see bullets as they move through the air?  If not, please
|> rl> explain how a deer is supposed to learn from the experience of
|> rl> being targeted and missed.
|>
|> js> I was at the shooting range this weekend, so from firsthand
|> js> experience I can report that guns make noise, and that bullets
|> js> slamming into wood or the ground make noise and kick up debris.
|> js> There may also be a whining sound and/or a rush of air from a
|> js> near miss.  Depending on wind direction there may also be the
|> js> unnatural smell of gunpowder in the air.  All of these things are
|> js> unnatural to the deer.
|>
|> When it suits your convenience, it seems to me that you'd have us
|> believe that deer are incapable of analyzing situations and
|> responding fearfully or courageously or intelligently or
|> stupidly.  In the passage above, however, you seem to be saying
|> that Sherlock Deer, the four-legged master of deduction, is
|> supposed to experience the sound of a remote explosion, the smell of
|> gun powder, and a small quantity of dust kicked up by some invisible
|> cause and subsequently conclude that he's the fatal target of a man who's
|> 100 yards away.
|>

Actually you seem to be belittling the deer's ability to determine that a
threat exists and react appropriately to it.  Deer are very much in tune
with their surroundings and are able to detect when "something is wrong."
What I am giving the deer credit for is the ability to learn from a near
miss encounter with a human, and perhaps to pass that information on to
other deer in some fashion.  You however, seem to be argueing that deer
can learn from encounters with other types of threats, but not with a
hunter.  Deer are prey animals, and as such, it behooves them to detect
threats as early as possible and to respond as quickly as possible in the
correct fashion.  Even if a deer doesn't understand there is a hunter
trying to kill it, it does understand that the noise and activity that
goes along with the shot is out of the ordinary and that there is a possible
threat out there.

I have shot at and missed two deer in the 5 years I have been deer hunting.
Both of them bolted immediately after the shot.  I'm not sure whether it was
the noise, the air movement caused by the passing slug, the additional
movement on my part, or whatever that caused them to run, but run they
did.  Why do you not believe that they will continue to run if in the
future they are shot at an missed again?

I think your paragraph above somewhat minimizes the noise made by a
12ga shotgun (not sure about rifles as I have little experience with them),
the amount of debris disturbed by the impact of a slug, and at least where
I hunt (and any other medium to heavily wooded area) most shots are under
100 yards, many considerably (in fact I probably wouldn't take a shot
at 100 yards or more, for a number of reasons).  Plus you deleted my reference
to probable increased activity by the hunter after the shot that could
also indicate something wrong to the deer.

|> > ...
|> js> Why do you feel that deer are incapable of learning from near
|> js> miss encounters with hunters?
|>
|> I'm sure that deer may, indeed, have the intelligence to learn from
|> some forms of human contact, but the notion that deer are supposed
|> to know that gun-bearing humans are dangerous doesn't appear to be
|> well-supported.
|>

Could you be more specific?  Just what kinds of contact could a deer learn
from and what kinds of contact would it not be able to learn from?  Why?

Also, you just deleted my question, "Do you feel that deciding the best
course of action to take when a human is detected cannot become part of an
experienced deer's (or pheasant's, to continue with my other example that
you deleted) repertoire?"  I'm trying to understand why you apparently
think deer can learn all sorts of things from their experiences, yet have
this huge blind spot about hunters.  In a thread in t.p.a quite awhile ago
some AR people (don't remember if you were one) where whining that hunters
were disturbing the deer and causing them to alter their behaviour during
hunting season.  It would seem that that is at odds with what you are
trying to have us believe now.  Since thay can't learn from encounters
with hunters why would they alter their behaviour?

Also, why would the (possibly unlawful, at least in Mn) PETA recommended
techniques of using loud sounds to scare deer away from hunters work, while
loud sounds (gunshots) and other activity by hunters not cause deer any
anxiety at all?

One last thing.  I find it interesting that you have deleted or just ignored
many of the questions I have asked of you, yet you get so upset when other
people in other threads do the same to you.  If you don't want to answer
a question or feel it doesn't apply, just say so rather than deleting it.
When you just delete a question it gives me the feeling that you don't
have a good answer and you'd really rather it would just go away and you hope
that no one notices that you skipped over it.  That may not be an accurate
representation of your position, but thats the feeling I get.

Joe
All opinions mine, etc.
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