Hunters who oppose sharpshooting culls in suburbia argue that they can do the job themselves.  But White Buffalo is permitted to shoot at night with silencers and infrared thermal-imaging equipment and in crowded neighborhoods–something recreational hunters can’t do.  And White Buffalo is permitted to set up bait stations, something recreational hunters can rarely do. Multiple studies demonstrate the inefficiency of recreational hunting in suburbia.  In a piece Williams and DeNicola co-authored for the Wildlife Society Bulletin and in which they cite some of their own research, they write:  “In most cases, hunters have limited access, legal restrictions (i.e., firearm discharge limitations), or may not prefer to see deer densities reduced below a level of recreational interest….Deer subjected to such efforts become educated and may behave differently during removal and surviving deer may alter behaviors, potentially limiting efficacy of future removal efforts (Williams et al., 2008).  There appears to be a threshold where hunters can no longer reduce deer densities because deer become too elusive.”

What about the situation outside the suburbs?  When I asked DeNicola if there are enough hunters to bring deer into balance with habitat at the county or state levels, he said, “I think there are enough hunters.  What it comes down to is the interest in having elevated deer densities. That’s the biggest obstacle to effective management. I think hunters have become spoiled over the last several decades, where state agencies were excessively conservative with antlerless permits.  There are these 10- or 15-year cycles. The population crashes because of a harsh winter. The state agency gets blamed. Hunters want more deer. The population rebounds. Hunters are happy; they think somehow these densities can be sustained. The population crashes again.  The agencies have no clout because there’s usually a political body that oversees the biologists. Then the politicians wonder why there’s no forest regeneration.” He cited Alt’s experience in Pennsylvania as Exhibit A.

THE SOLUTION

“The greatest mistake ever made in wildlife management” is how Alt defines allowing deer to overpopulate to the point they destroy the ecosystem they’re part of.  For a while, it looked like he would permanently correct that mistake in Pennsylvania. When Alt inherited the deer program, the state had the most unhealthy buck-doe ratio in the United States.  Ninety percent of harvested bucks had left their mothers only six months earlier. “”We were exterminating them as soon as they grew antlers,” Alt says. During his tenure, antlerless harvest was the highest by far in the state’s history.

And it began to work.  “Even when you start shooting half a million deer a year like we did, it takes a while for that to be measureable on a forest ecosystem,” explains Alt.  “The numbers are so high you’ve got to grind them down, and then they have to be down a while before the plants respond. It wasn’t until about three years ago that we started to see major improvements.  We’ve got a generation of trees past the deer for the first time in decades.”

But the “sad news,” Alt says, “is that the Game Commission has been taking more and more bricks out of the wall.  The real killer is that they’ve pretty much gutted the concurrent buck and doe season [with its heavy emphasis on antlerless harvest].  Even though the bucks-only faction is a tiny percent of the sportsmen, they’re effective. They pressure the agency through their legislators.”

By no means is the Pennsylvania situation an anomaly.  “A lot of states are like that,” declares Kip Adams, senior wildlife biologist at the  Quality Deer Management Association. “In my 20-plus years as a wildlife biologist, science has never meant less than it does today.”

Pennsylvania now has the highest number of deer-vehicle collisions in the nation.  Some towns are taking matters into their own hands. In an effort to reduce collisions by 50 percent over the next five years, the Pittsburgh suburb of Mr. Lebanon has hired White Buffalo to conduct archery and sharpshooting culls.  The archery cull began September 19 and continued through January. The sharpshooting cull runs from February 1 to March 1.

If you live in an area with too many deer and really want to help wildlife (deer included), get involved at the state level in support of science-based wildlife management.  Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Attend hearings. Educate your fellow hunters. Urge your fish and wildlife agency to base all management decisions on science provided by the wildlife professionals you and your fellow sportsmen help hire through license fees and the taxes you pay on guns, archery equipment, and ammunition.  Stand tall against voices of the past that insist on the failed, dangerous practice of bucks-only harvest.

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Q & A with Robert Daviau and Ted Williams

RJD:   Question: OK we have read your article about too many deer.  Many who have read it are from out of state and have seen what you have described.  Now for those of us who have never witnessed that.    As you know I have been an ardent deer hunter in Maine for all of my life.  Why have I never seen the overpopulation of deer that you have described—and we have had no cougars and no wolves (coyotes arrived in 1963)

 TW:   Answer: Maine is at the northern range of whitetails. Originally, most of Maine wasn’t whitetail habitat.  Just moose and caribou.  Maine, unlike CT, has frigid winters and cuts the bejesus out of deer yards.  In CT deer don’t even yard up.  Weather and habitat have thusfar prevented overpopulation.  But with global warming it may be coming.  While coyotes are not obligate deer predators, they take some, esp. in Maine when the snow is deep.

 RJD: Question: If you choose to cull the deer because there are too many, what should be done in our area where there are too few?

 TW: Answer: Not sure there are “too few.”  Just fewer than hunters would like to see.  After you told me about all the winter feeding I saw a video of it.  I can’t think that’s a meaningful fix.  But for sure Maine should take better care of its deer yards.  Leave some thermal cover.

 RJD: Questions:  Do you believe there were white tailed deer in Maine when the settlers arrived?  The world says no, but it is tough for me to believe.

 TW: Answer:  I think you were correct when you said there were probably a few in southern Maine.  But they weren’t in most of the state.

 RJD: Questions:  Can caribou, white tailed deer and moose thrive together?  My guess is no, but why?

 TW: Answer:  Good guess.  History indicates probably no. Deer are more or less immune to the ubiquitous brain worm they pick up by accidently ingesting snails on vegetation.  Brain worm is fatal to moose and caribou.  That’s why you don’t see lots of moose around lots of deer.

 RJD: Question:  Will the Maine whitetail get smaller over the course of time because now they are all fed?  I say yes, because it eliminates “survival of the fittest.”  But is it that simple?

 TW: Answer:  Not sure about that.  I do know that the colder the climate the bigger the animal.  That’s due to ratio of body mass to heat retention.

 RJD: Questions:  Do coyotes eat moose?  This is a trick question, because I know the answer.

 TW: Answer:  Coyotes are opportunists. They eat anything they can find — fish, frogs,  apples, garbage and, if they get lucky, moose calves.  They probably even take crippled adults. Some eastern coyotes are the size of wolves.  I know a biologist in VT who weighed own at 70 pounds. Even Maine grouse are bigger than MA grouse.

 

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