The report below was produced by the Center for Animal Protection
White-Tailed Deer - An Ecological Perspective
Sue Russell, a founder of the New Jersey League of Animal Protection Voters, said quality deer management not only encouraged shooting of does, but also encouraged landowners to provide wild deer with food. That practice was evident on Dr. Alt's tour. He and Mr. Grasavage passed a 600 -acre tract owned by a deer hunter who had cleared wooded hills and carpeted them with cornfields - all intended for deer.
A few miles away, Dr. Alt spent half an hour hearing complaints from the Castrogiovanni family, whose 600-acre dairy farm is losing corn, tree-seedlings and sprouting seed to roving herds. In essence, the only difference between the two nearby properties was that one was raising and fattening livestock, while the other was raising and fattening deer. The goal of such programs, Ms. Russell said, is "to create more targets for hunters."
Deer preferred crops planted on county park lands have the same impact. Instead of using valuable green space to plant a monoculture for deer, commissions could responsibly manage the same lands to support a diversity of both plant and animal life.
Statewide, hunting clubs, several (Morris County, Princeton) bordering or directly in townships complaining of too many deer, are managing private acreage for more deer. So is the State, on hundreds of thousands of WMA acres. The Division of Fish and Wildlife , which works closely with sportsmen's federations in designing deer management zones, claims it is unaware of exact locations of large tracts leased and managed by hunting clubs and cannot release the information to the public. Several of these clubs are in Monmouth County.
Farm Bureau demands for lethal solutions remain steady. As early as the 1940s, with comparatively far fewer deer in the state, New Jersey farmers complained of damage to deer and demanded only lethal controls. By 1950, farmers clamored for deer kills. A remarkably non-political, pre-Human Dimensions state report included two findings:
During the last months of this study of deer damage, it became manifest that a large proportion of the number of complaints did not bear the same relationship to the existing degree of damage as formerly reported. Many complaining property owners asserted to the project leader that their complaints were made primarily for the purpose of impressing the Division of Fish and Game with the apparent extent of the deer problems, and to support any movement which might result in a desired reduction of the deer herd, particularly in the northern counties. Upon investigation of the complaints, rendered during 1949, it was found that 58 per cent of the total number (118) of properties involved sustained light or no actual damage at the time of inspection.
Farmers preferred ineffective shooting to use of non-lethal abatement:
Despite its usually low effectiveness, the permit method is still a favored measure of deer damage control in New Jersey, . . . some farmers regard the killing of deer as so obviously the only solution to crop damage that they seldom calculate its cost or compare its actual efficiency with that of other methods of control.
Escalating birth rates
Kills at Watchung Reservation have increased the pregnancy rate and the percentage of triplets to respectively 80% (after an initial decline) and from 8% to 13%.
After more than 17 years of sport hunting, ostensibly to "reduce" deer numbers in Princeton Township, the Township had actually creating breeding farm conditions, with 2.5 adult females" for every male.
Anecdotally, Watchung deer were blamed for the spread of invasive seeds and plants. But historical Watchung inventories not listing deer among reservation wildlife instead attributed spread of alien seeds to the proximity to the Port of New York. A major problem at the reservation remains mile-a-minute weed, spread by seed rain.
Bait-and-shoot at Baltusrol Gulf Club caused "a heavy influx of deer into the Watchung Reservation." (Watchung Report, 1999). Fleeing heavy gunning at Watchung Reservation, surviving deer sought refuge in surrounding neighborhoods (Watchung Report. 1999.) Refuge-seeking was used as justification for more Reservation killing and more widespread complaints.
So-called "control" sport hunts initiated by the Division of Fish and Wildlife at Monmouth Battlefield Park and in Morris County also escalated birth rates.
Inflated population estimates
Throughout the United States, kill advocates have shown a pattern of vastly inflated white-tailed deer estimates:
Illinois: In 2000, officials at the Forest District Preserve's McDowell Grover Forest sought a deer kill, claiming "overabundant" deer were devastating the understory. A consequent sniper kill was canceled when "sharpshooters hired by the district had difficulty in recent weeks finding many deer to kill . . . the state said the district did not show proof that the deer population had reached such a density that they were destroying McDowell's vegetation."
Iowa: In Iowa City, the formula used by game managers top project the rate of increase, the very reason for the Iowa City kill, was wrong. Actual reproductive tracts of does killed by contract sniper White Buffalo were significantly lower than Iowa game department simulation models. The Department of Natural Resources justified the exaggeration by stating that the "simulations using the higher level of productivity tended to 'fit' the counts better. Simulations using the higher level of productivity needed to have significantly more deer present than indicated by the county to 'fit' changes that should occur with deer removals."
New York: In 1998, after 5 years of killing, the rate of "decline" in Irondequoit, New York, had slowed since 1995, with indications that "the population may be on the rise after an initial decline." Trends also showed car-deer incidents rising.
New Jersey: Princeton Township officials estimated "1600" Township deer to justify its controversial contract kill program. After the initial kill season, the original estimate was revised down to "1000" - a 60% reduction. The initial inflated count had been conducted by the township's foremost political proponent of the hunt.
Monmouth County Park Commission estimates voiced at public meetings are similarly, and clearly, overstated and anecdotal. Fly-overs as conducted by park employees inexpert at counts are notoriously unreliable; scat counts are the most reliable method for ascertaining general numbers. Moreover, "The Science of Overabundance," published by the Smithsonian Institute, clearly states (see below), that boilerplate formulas fixing "desired" numbers of deer to 20 per square mile are meaningless. (See below Forestry section.)
Bowhunting
Sport bowhunters were involved with initiating the Monmouth County parks sport hunt from the outset. According to John Erndl, president of United Bowhunters of New Jersey: "We were trying to keep this as quiet as possible until after the first meeting. Because you just alerted every anti group in NJ to this. THANKS! As for the UBNJ I have been in on these talks since the beginning. The county wanted it kept quiet util it was basically a done deal." [Sic.] And: " [w]e were meeting with a homeowners association that was going to work on the freeholders and parks commission.' Many homeowners abutting Shark River and other parks are dismayed to learn of the hunt. Conversely, bowhunters and complainants are in direct communication with parks personnel and bowhunters flood each town meeting.
According to the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, "Bow and arrow should never be used because this method has the most potential for causing extreme suffering."
Broadhead arrows inflict maximal suffering, affecting nerve endings, muscles, and bone. The deliberate aim of the recreational bowhunting is to inflict death by hemorrhaging.
Scientific studies show that for every animal killed and retrieved, another is left to die a slow and painful death from wounds. The Fund for Animals writes: "Bowhunting is both inhumane and ineffective at solving conflicts between humans and deer. As you can see by the many enclosed scientific studies, bowhunting generally has more than a 50 percent crippling rate. Wounded deer either survive crippled or die slowly over days though blood loss or becoming infested with parasites." The dozens of studies cited by the Fund were conducted by state game agencies. For example: "Langenau (1986) found that archery deer hunters were estimated to have retrieved 43% of the deer hit by arrows."
Veterinarian Steve Nusbaum elaborates:
Consider the broadhead, used by many of America's bowhunters. It has brand and style names such as 'Ripper,' 'Penetrator,' and 'Terminator doublecut.." It is a razor-sharp tip equipped with two or four cutting edges which are screwed into the shaft of an arrow. . . in the arsenal of menacing artifacts employed by the sport hunting community, the broadhead is notorious for its inherent inefficiency and singular capacity to cripple, wound, inflict pain, and prolong the suffering of millions of 'game' animals each hunting season.. . . During the 1985 archery season on the Walter buck wildlife Management Area in Texas, 101 bowhunters fired 86 arrows to seriously wound 11 whitetails without killing a single animal. even [a direct hit to the heart] then, the chances the animal would-be rendered immediately unconscious are almost nil. . . What if an arrow nicks an auricle rather than cuts through both ventricles? How long does it take before induced analgesic shock sets in. . . veins, arteries and nerves run together - hit one and the odds are you'll hit one of the others.
Hunting tabloids advise:
The rule of thumb has long been that we should wait 30 to 45 minutes on heart and lung hits, an hour or more on a suspected liver hit, eight to 12 hours on paunch hits, and that we should follow up immediately on hindquarter and other muscle hits, 'to keep the wound open and bleeding.'
For a bow hunter to easily recover a wounded deer, the blood loss must be extensive. A deer will have to lose at least 35 percent of its total blood volume for the hunter to recover it rapidly.
The role of state land-grant university wildlife departments
Wildlife management departments were established at state land-grant universities to "ensure that" the universities "worked hand-in-hand" with [game] agencies". Syllabi adhere strictly to industry orthodoxy; research does not conflict with industry perspectives.
State agencies contract with land grant universities for re-stocking and habitat manipulation projects for white-tail deer, wild turkeys and other hunted species. Departments produce reports, surveys, and public education materials, including videos. Projects are funded by grants from hunting agencies and industry groups, including the National Rifle Association Land grant university wildlife personnel are increasingly assuming key public relations and communications roles in behalf of controversial agency and industry policies. The relationship is mutually beneficial:
Societies consisting of wildlife professionals are institutions within universities; the graduates of these programs are hired into governmental agencies. These agency members then feed staff into the universities' departments, and the cycle continues, each group enhancing the credibility of the other.
Industry insularity extends to "peer reviewed" publications. A recent Rutgers University report notably omitted any reference to habitat enhancement and white-tail population dynamics - the lynch-pins of state and federal white-tail management programs. Larry Katz, Rutgers' foremost wildlife spokesperson and advocate of sport hunting, sits on the board of a shooting industry advocacy group, the Foundation for Animal Use Education. David Drake was hired to promote sport hunting of white-tails as the only viable means of control. Mr. Drake works with Human Dimensions, a public attitude survey unit which works directly with the Wildlife Management Institute. The latter's board consists entirely of gun and ammunition manufacturers.
Pursuing State and County Parks for Sport Gunning
New Jersey has registered a steep, 43% decline in the number of hunters
since 1991. The decline mirrors a national trend. In 1998, the Division conducted a survey to identify "reasons for decreased hunter activity." Prime reasons cited by hunters were: not enough private lands to hunt and limited access to these lands."" To stem the loss, the Division is working to gain more access to private and public lands, with a strong emphasis on public parks. To reverse declines in license and gun sales, federal and state agencies have developed long-term plans to maximize hunting in suburban areas nationwide. A plan devised by the gun industry (Wildlife Management Institute), actually exploits artificially increased deer numbers to bring hunting to the suburbs ("community based deer management.") The Division conducts an aggressive, stated policy of opening public parks to hunting.
State and county parks agencies engaging in preferred-crop planting are, directly or indirectly, part of this program. Parks commissions propose liberal sport hunting to" rectify" general park and farm depredations, when planting corn fields and hunting exacerbate any existing problems: virtually all "control" hunts on record have increased or maintained high birth numbers, and, far from temporary measures or palliatives, all have become permanent sport hunts.
Forestry
Boilerplate declarations that deer must be hunted in the absence of predators is doubted by experts. So is assigning an arbitrary numerical deer density per square mile and a "stable" number of deer for a given area. Post-hunt surveys generally show inflated pre-hunt estimates; overestimates generally double the number of actual white-tailed in targeted reduction areas.
Independent science separates dogma from fact
According to peer-reviewed, objective studies, the impact of long-and-short term browsing is more complex, and often more positive. Moderate to heavy deer browsing can actually increase plant diversity at certain successional stages, preventing the spread of fungus and other diseases. Browsing can be and usually is, in the life of a forest, transient in effect. New studies show that deer were mistakenly, and too easily, blamed for the decline of eastern hemlocks, when climate, land-use, ecosystem dynamics and tree life history were culpable. Significantly, removing deer does not improve hemlock regeneration. Studies showing more species richness near fences excluding deer failed to take bird droppings and other factors into account, as birds perched on fences produce seed rain. Herbivores have a positive effect on nutrient cycling and habitat succession. Other studies show damage attributed to deer caused by a chain of disturbances, including ice storms and drought -- all natural impacts in the life of a forest.
White-tails are a natural part of North American ecosystems.
Ironically, it isn't deer themselves but primarily single-species management and production of deer for hunting that has artificially increased numbers.
Except where otherwise indicated, quotes are excerpted from The Science of Overabundance (William J. McShea, Smithsonian Institution Press. 1997) The book includes conflicting scientific studies and opinions.
More deer now than ever before?
"The hypothesis that deer are more abundant now than they were prior to
European colonization is equivocal at best . . . there is intense debate over how to obtain accurate counts of existing populations, let alone how to determine numbers of deer from periods before counting had even begun. Even if assessments of pre-colonial numbers could be made," says McShea, forests are now secondary, different in species make-up and appearances. (pgs. 1-7)
"Extinctions and extirpations from these pre-colonial ecosystems have removed critical plant and animal components, and without these components, it is difficult to place current effects of deer on their environment into realistic historical perspective. For example, the historic role of deer in tree-seed consumption and seedling establishment in eastern forests is moot when a major seed predator, the passenger pigeon, and a major seed producer, the American chestnut, have both been removed from the system." (pgs. 1-7)
McShea observes that density itself is "problematic," and that "no static number of deer per square kilometer can provide an accurate reflection of the dynamics of the system." Numbers of deer in southwestern Virginia "have remained rather sparse since 1950" while "populations on some federal lands have maintained high densities for 30 years or more. Changes in deer abundance over a broad scale do not necessarily reflect what is happening within specific refuges." (pgs. 1-7) (continued on page 3)
