From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Re: Case Example #1
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 06:32:37 GMT

In article <altar.702077093@sfu.ca>, altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn
Altar) writes:
>>
>> It has frequently be stated that hunting is necessary to keep
>> the deer populations controlled.  Well, here is one carefully
>> documented case example of how such "controls" may work.
>> Of course, this is only one example, but it is disturbing
>> and makes the point that any generality about, and appeals
>> for, "control" does need to be more critically assessed.
 
>Depends on what you mean by controlling the population.  I don't think
>anyone here has stated that left unchecked deer will multiply infintely.
 
I hope not, but the credo has been that culling is some kind of
absolute necessity for whatever reason.  The point of this single
example was that the so-called rationale was subverted (intentionally
or not) to change what was formerly a true "refuge" into a managed
game farm for maximizing sustainable yields of deer for hunting.
 
 
 
>Rather, they will multiply until they overgraze their range.  That range
>will then be capable of supporting far fewer deer than it once did (over
>grazing seriously damages habitat) and there will be a large winter die
>off.
 
Damage habitat?  What do we meant by that?  Damaged for whom and for
how long.  It was once thought that natural occurring forest fires
served no purpose but to wreck destruction.  Well, nature has been
around a lot longer then we have, and when we talk about preserving
the "wilderness", we mean just that, preserving a least a few islands
of true wilderness that manages itself and is not managed for the
benefit of hunters.
 
 
 
>Lots of deer will starve.  Naturally, during this time of intense
>competition for food, all animals will be weakened to one extent
>or another and the possibilities for introducting disease into
>the population escalates.
 
Here you make an empirical claim with no references.  You also assume
certain values that can be questioned.  Again, I trust nature, and
those ecologists who attempt to understand what is an immensely
complex system, far more than what might be only be stemming from the
self-interests of hunters.  I frankly don't want every last
beleaguered track of wilderness turned over to the hunters.  We have
already taken over so much of the planet, can't we leave just a few
refuges as true "refuges" for the animals that also share this crowded
planet?
 
 
 
>> During the 1970's "resource managers" instigated deer hunting at
>> the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge supposedly in order to
>> pander to some complaints that the deer were destroying seedings
>> adjacent to the refuge and that "overbrowsing" had made for the
>> disappearance of indigenous short-eared and saw-whet owls from
>> the refuge.  Since 1974 deer hunting has been permitted, one deer
>> or either sex per hunter.
>
>Since they were doing this 'in order to pander to some complaints' it isn't
>hard to see that the author discounts the problems of overgrazing.
>Nonetheless, they are real.  Such overgrazing could have a very serious
>effect on both the seedlings and owls.
 
Maybe so, but it is not interesting that the numbers were not reduced
to what was projected as necessary to achieve this happy result of
preventing so-called over-grazing.  To reiterate, the purported goal
of hunting was to reduce the size of the herd to a posthunt level of
about 250.  That this did not occur suggests that there was no such
over-grazing problem in the first place.
 
 
 
>> 1.  The maximum # of deer supportable at this refuge is approx.
>> 650
>
>No.  We can not conclude that.  We can conclude that the maximum number
>that have ever been on the land was 650 from when it first started to be
>measured.  The numbers indicate that from '69 - '73 the population went in
>a wave whose peak was 650 critters.  Don't forget that these population
>figures include new fawns.  For such a small increase in the population,
>there had to be a fairly large die off from starvation.  As Tim has already
>pointed out, it is this die off that determines the number of deer the land
>can comfortably carry.  From these numbers it would appear to be between
>three and four hundred animals.
 
I was talking about the "maximum # of deer supportable" in this refuge
and you change the terms to some obscure notion of "comfortably
supported".  Yes, I remember what Tim said but you have not added any
new information or arguments.   Nor have you address the points I made
to Tim on this score.  Anyway, I will add a new argument from my side.
What a habitat can be properly said to "comfortably" support should, I
would think, be broaden to encompass what occurs all year around, as
well as, over certain predator-prey cycles.
 
 
 
>> 4.  Deer, like other species of wildlife, will attempt to adjust
>> their numbers to available food and habitat.  Hunting thus served
>> to altered the innate population controls of the animals by
>> increasing their reproductive rates.  The purported reason for
>> the hunt for reducing the size of the herd to a posthunt level of
>> 250 simply did not occur.  Thus one, and only one purpose was
>> really served in mutating what was once a true "refuge" into a
>> kind of public supported "game farm", namely the PERPETUATION OF
>> HUNTING FOR THE HUNTERS.
>
>On the contrary.  It is likely that hunting in this instance helped to curb
>the numbers.  Notice that hunting lengthened the recovery period somewhat.
>Hunting usually doesn't flatten the population curve out, but instead makes
>the peaks smaller and the valleys less deep.  This minimizes the winter
>kill, minimizes the opportunities for disease to infect starved animals and
>so forth.  It looks to me like this place could do with some more hunting,
>not less.
 
Spoken from the perspective of an hunter and not from the perspective
of the habitat or deer.  This was the point of my citing that example.
 
 
 
>>    Again, the post-hunt figures are for late December.  If by "late winter"
>>    you mean March, then no doubt the hunting pressures and stress on
>>    the deer during December caused the deer to lose crucial fat
>>    reserves.
>>
>> This is rediculous. How does a 9 day deer season which just moves the
>> deer around a bit more or, more likely, makes them bed down tighter,
>> cause any significant reductions in body fat?
>Fer sure.  Wish I could lose significant body fat in nine days. Anyone
>want to hunt me for 10 days? :-)
 
Besides the increased activity levels incurred by hunting (see Root et
al.  "Effects of intensive hunting on white tailed deer movement"
WILD. SOC. BULL., 1988, 16:145-51), there is also the energy consumed
by their increased nervousness, fear and terror.  Studies of humans under
fear can show dramatic weight losses. 
 
Permit me to so bold as to suggest that a much simpler way for you to
loose weight than by having you undergo the stress of being hunted,
would simply be to cut down on the primary source of saturated fat in
your diet, namely meat.  Lacto-ovo-vegetarians are about on average 10
-15 lbs lighter than their over-weight omnivore counterparts.  I have
yet to "meat" (pun intended) a fat vegan. ;-)
 
                                                        ted

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