why should we deer hunt
...t fast. Georgia hunters would have to harvest roughly 700,000 deer this year to reduce the herd to sustainable numbers -- more than Georgia hunters have ever taken in any single year. Georgia will have too many deer again next year. Any student in biology is taught about carrying capacity. Hunting allows for healthy carrying capacity. If carrying capacity isn’t met the deer would start to become a danger to themselves. When deer start to overpopulate disease is bound to spread. This is what the educational website http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/k/k/kkp111/interactions.htm had to correlate between overpopulation and disease. There are a multitude of viral and bacterial diseases that infect whitetails. This list includes but is not limited to Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, skin tumors, encephalitis, foot-and-mouth disease, rabies, foot rot, and tuberculosis (Halls, 1984). In the past several decades, Chronic Wasting Disease, which is related to mad cow disease, has emerged as a significant disease affecting whitetails. Its severity has only recently been appreciated and attempts are being made to eradicate it (Williams, 2002) (1) White-tailed deer provide a home for many species of roundworms, tapeworms, and flukes. It is possible that parasites could provide a regulatory mechanism in the absence of natural predators (Halls, 1984). (1) Deer have a very significant impact on humans, both positive and negative. In general, people enjoy deer. They like watching deer, photographing deer, and hunting deer. As the prime game animal in Pennsylvania, they generate a significant amount of money for the state through hunting licenses. However, they can also become a nuisance, especially if they become overabundant. (1) They cause damage to agricultural crops, ornamental plants, and landscaping. According to a uestionnaire sent to Virginia farmers and homeowners, the degree to which someone personally experienced these negative effects of deer overpopulation significantly influenced whether or not the individual thought that the local deer population needed to be managed (West, 2002). (1) They spread diseases such as Bovine Tuberculosis and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and, as important carriers of deer ticks, spread Lyme disease. CWD poses a threat to hunters who eat the infected deer. The disease is the suspected culprit in the deaths of three hunters from Wisconsin who might have consumed infected meat and subsequently contracted brain diseases. In an attempt to reduce the incidence of CWD in Wisconsin, the 2002 deer hunting season was extended, and all parts of the carcasses were required to be turned over to state troopers (Breithaupt, 2002). While this mysterious disease still puzzles researchers, new light has been shed on Lyme disease, as the genome of the microorganism that causes the disease has recently been sequenced. It is hoped that this will help scientists understand and treat the disease (Barbour, 1997). (1) Infected deer are dangerous to themselves, the animals that eat them, and the people that habitat area in which they live. Hunters that intake the meat from deer infected with the CWD or Chronic Wasting Disease have actually perished. Hunting seems to be the most humane solution to the overpopulation problem. Instead of having deer starve to death hunters take the initiative and give deer a quick death. The population explosion is getting so bad that people and deer are tragically dying in fatal car accidents. Also, up to 100,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur annually in the state of Pennsylvania, causing thousands of injuries and several human fatalities. (Pennsylvania Game Commission). (1) And according to the information on http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/fhm/fhncs/chapter3/whitetail_deer.htm “The number of deer/car accidents has increased considerably during the past 10 years. Average loss from such accidents in Michigan in 1995 was $1,500,” (1). Hunting seems to be very beneficial to the well-being of the deer, the animals that depend upon them for their existence, and humans. While the positive factors of hunting are numerous there is still great resistance to hunting. On the website http://www.agt.net/public/arrows/home_chptr1.htm the pro-hunting group tries to expose the “libel and/or slander” tactics that the Anti-Hunters try and use. The Anti's Tactics What the anti-hunting faction does not tell you and does not want you to know is where most of our current knowledge comes from. The hunter's observation of wildlife activity in the field. Another fact the anti-hunting faction keep try to keep silent is the success of some campaigns through dis-information. They continually make statements such as "these poor animals are endangered and may go extinct" even though populations are in fact very healthy. Another favorite trick of anti-hunting factions is the use of disturbing, misleading and graphic videos of criminals at work. The group will then pass these acts off as hunters doing the normal thing. The reality is hunting has had a more positive impact on wildlife than a negative, any time an animal becomes threatened, it's hunters and true outdoorsmen who react FIRST. Recently, a post in the rec.sport.archery newsgroup detailed a letter in which the Citizens Against Cruelty to Animals of the Wild described their plans. The first target would be bear baiting, after that success, the use of dogs for bear and cougar hunting, then bowhunting etc.. Each time the group intends to attack only a small portion of the hunting community at a time. Starting with the most divisive and lowest participation forms of hunting first. The reasoning behind the method was that hunters as single and cohesive group would be impossible to defeat. What they intend to do, is erode our strength as a group by singling out each faction of hunting. (1) Yet, there are other arguments that refute hunting with a bit more veracity. One of the big anti-hunting claims is that hunting animals is a breech in ethics. According to www.chaos.org.uk/~maureen/issue.html Killing animals is wrong Why? To you and me this may seem obvious, but it isn't to others. In short (a) the animal is deprived of all the pleasures it would have enjoyed in the future: food, play, sunshine, sex etc, and (b) the animal undergoes mental and physical suffering when hunted. ...