From: J.M.Spencer@newcastle.ac.uk (Jonathan Spencer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Self Regulating Populations
Date: 21 Aug 92 11:44:03 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:

>js> 3) Yes the deer are entirely dependent on what nature provides. The
>js> LACS made much (when they bought the land) that nature would be left to
>js> take its course. (Handouts from visitors? Look Russell, these are WILD
>js> deer, they are not domesticated creatures, they keep clear of
>js> predators.)

>Thank you for admitting that these deer are not truly dependent on 
>what nature provides.  

I'll be generous and assume that you have simply misunderstood what I
said. *The* deer (meaning the main herds) live on the moor. They *are*
dependent on what the moor provides, and that isn't much. They were not
culled for some years. The population increased. The moor cannot
support an infinite population. In the quest for food brought about by
competition, *some* individual specimens of the deer move down onto the
low agricultural land. Note *some* small number of deer, not *the*
deer, *the* deer remain on the moor. In order to control numbers, the
LACS has adopted a policy of culling. So your statement 

>You've described a group of animals that 
>are supposedly free from human interference and free from 
>handouts, yet they have human crops available for eating...  

is *wholly* incorrect.  *The* deer reside on the moorland owned by
LACS. They do not have crops available, they have heather, lichens,
maybe some rough grasses at the moor's edge, and very little else. The
few marauders, who have been pushed by pressure of numbers to seek food
by going outside the LACS land, down onto the low land, will find
better food. *The* deer live on the hill where there is no human
provided food, and no competition with sheep, either. But we are
digressing. The point is that the deer on the LACS land are not
self-regulating, they just continue to breed, and expand if there is
room for expansion, which there is. If your argument is correct, LACS
should fence in the deer at which point they will lower their rate of
reproduction and settle at some convenient population level. And I ask
myself, if that is so, why haven't they done just that?

>crops that are typically higher in fat and protein than the brush 
                                                             ^^^^^
>material that deer would typically eat.  
^^^^^^^^^

ha, ha, ha, ha! "brush material"? Russell, do you have any idea
what I mean by a moor?

>js> Consequently, they have recognised that, in the absence of natural
>js> predation (eg the European wolf) they are going to have to cull the
>js> deer themselves, or get someone to do it for them (but not as a sport).
>js> Only they don't consider that a pack of deerhounds (eg the Quorn hunt
>js> who own neighbouring land) is an acceptable substitute for a pack of
>js> wolves. The LACS advocate that the deer should be controlled by
>js> "marksmen using high powered rifles". THis is a very different position
>js> from that when they bought the land which argued that the deer would
>js> stabalise their numbers to that which the ground could support. They
>js> don't, they just expand their range (of course).

>Animal populations are, indeed, self-regulating.  And 
>animal populations will, indeed, expand their range if given the 
>opportunity to do so.  Your example demonstrates that the 
>creation and protection of stable, natural ecosystems isn't an 
>easy task when the areas in question are surrounding by man-made 
>environments like farms.  

It demonstrated that in the absence of natural predation, man must
either prey on these species, or disease and starvation will do the
job. That is the experience in Scotland where the red deer have
expanded to their full range, they have no natural predators (well,
golden eagles take the odd calf) they have doubled their population in
twenty years and show no sign of stopping, they are causing permanent
erosion to the land, they are causing de-forestation, they die in their
hundreds every winter from starvation. They are at saturation level,
yet we see *no* sign of their numbers levelling off which, is what you
say they will do. When?

Before you answer, I should tell you that the (independent, scientific
body) the Red Deer Commission blame the current problem on a lack of
culling of the hinds and are recommending an immediate cull of not less
than 60,000 hinds. Obviously, the RDC don't subscribe to your
hypothesis. 

--Jonathan