The Dangerous Dichotomy Of Deadly Deer
Juxtaposing two news articles together is instructive. The number of car-deer accidents in this country is skyrocketing as deer herds grow uncontrollably in many areas. The lack of predators (other than the occasional Ford or Chevy, of course) has led to an explosion in the deer population. The hunters who used to take the place of natural predators in many areas are declining in number as well. So, in places like central Massachusetts, articles like this one occur:
Deer cause 3-vehicle crash
Two drivers hospitalized, deer escape unscathed
By Kim Ring TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
STURBRIDGE— Three people were injured after a trio of deer crossing Route 49 triggered a chain-reaction accident just before 7 last night.
Officer Larry P. Bateman said Linda Maher, 52, of Langevin Street, Spencer, had slowed her southbound 2004 Dodge Caravan when she saw the deer crossing.
A 2000 Dodge Dakota truck behind her also slowed, but it was rear-ended by a third vehicle, which pushed the truck into the van.
Christopher C. Smith, 36, of Main Street, Sturbridge, was taken by Life Flight helicopter to UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus in Worcester for what appeared to be serious but not life-threatening injuries, police said.
While in other areas, like Wyoming, stories like this appear:
Agency aims to help deer
By JEFF GEARINO
Star-Tribune staff writer Thursday, March 15, 2007Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Terry Cleveland remembers when mule deer populations were so high around Baggs in southern Wyoming in the 1960s, hunters sometimes enjoyed a three-deer hunting season.
The management challenge for the department back then was pretty much to ensure enough deer were harvested from the huge herds that inhabited the state.
Those days, wildlife managers admit, are long gone. In the face of dwindling habitat, predation, disease, weather and other factors, it is very unlikely that the state could ever return to the mule deer numbers that existed in the middle of the last century.
But mule deer populations in Wyoming continue to be of critical importance to the state — both for the hunters and the hunter revenue that fills the coffers of businesses and the agency.
With that in mind, Game and Fish established a mule deer working group in 1998 and pledged additional resources to address the many factors affecting the state's mule deer herds.
Yes, there is a difference between the types of deer and the states are widely separated. But the folks in Wyoming might want to be careful what they wish for.
By Quilly Mammoth, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 1:13 pm
You can see that the agents of the Animal Uprising have infiltrated the MSM. Here is a video on the Raccoon Feast you wrote about earlier:
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=e4931296-ac06-4b75-bee6-9c0327a6c5db&p=hotvideo_m_edpicks&t=m5&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17626550/?GT1=9145&fg=
In the back runs pictures of cute, cuddly little bandit-masked furballs. Place, no doubt, to gain the little criminals sympathy. But we know that they really are!