No longer can you exonerate the brutality of hunting and then throw another hambur- ger on the grill. You cannot justify shooting a doe full of birth control and then have eight children of your own. If you decry the raping of our old-growth forests, you must also question the lumber that builds your house or deck. The increasing deer population is only a small part of the big picture, but an immensely important lesson from which we can learn. In one respect, the deer problem is a matter of economics.
Farmers lose crops and homeowners lose expensive landscape vegetation.
It is also a matter of safety as more and more deer-automobile collisions occur each year. Public health could also be at risk as increased deer populations can lead to higher numbers of deer ticks, the vectors of Lyme disease. Of all the issues, the most subtle and important is what this means ecologically. New Jersey has already surpassed its capacity to support a healthy deer population, and many of our woodlands have been decimated as winter forage becomes increasingly hard to find. The species composition of our forests has been severely affected, the full degree to which we may not understand for another hundred years.