Posted on 01/16/2005 9:39:16 AM PST by Willie Green
There are 1.6 million deer in Pennsylvania, so many that they are eating themselves out of forests, farms and parts of their home range.
The voracious herd has prevented tree regrowth in vast tracts of the commonwealth's commercially valuable hardwood forests, eats millions of dollars of farm crops and collides with thousands of cars and trucks, causing damage and death.
Yet there aren't enough deer for some hunters, who aren't seeing as many through their rifle scopes as they did a couple of years ago.
Those hunters now want the state to go back to rules that would put greater limits on how many deer can be killed, and they already are gaining some political support for their position.
A recent study refutes the hunters' claims, though.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
A drive-time traffic commenter in the Bay Area ("Ossifer Vic", KSFO) refers to deer as "antlered rats" when he has to report (two to three times a week) that a car has struck one on the highway.As a result, I am seeing deer everywhere. I sometimes even see one crossing my street when I go to work in the morning. They came into my yard last summer and ate up most of my vegetable garden. I think I'm going to have to acquire a taste for venison and shoot me one or two next season.
Missouri is overrun with deer. South of the corn belt, the deer are smaller but just as numerous.
My loving spouse refers to any new plants we set in the garden as "deer salad" for that very reason. We don't count on anything thriving outside a fence (even salvia, supposedly deer-proof) until it's grown tall enough to be out of reach.
That's what it sounds like. The deer figure out they won't be shot if they get to the farmland areas plus the food is better --- all that corn. But the farmers don't like hunters shooting their cows, horses, dogs, kids by mistake.
One problem for the deer - - which are too numerous - - are the black bears. Here in Pike County, PA on the same 90 acres three bears were taken during this past hunting season, but only one deer. A couple of miles away, 11 black bears were removed from a fish hatchery.
The PGC's studies have shown that as of a couple of years ago, black bears were killing as many fawns as coyotes.
When you have creatures that need 20,000 calories a day in the fall to bulk up before hibernation, meat is probably less of a hassle than getting 70 lbs of blueberries for the same calorie count.
BTTT!!!!!
I've never shot any of those, but I do have a good record for feral cats up in the NW corner of CT while upland bird hunting....oh yeah, sorry and a few wild dogs who were running deer....
FMCDH(BITS)
As a motorcyclist, I can verify that there has been an explosion of various antelope including deer and moose. It is now unsafe to ride a motorcycle at night in many locations.
Most of PA is nasty. A good indicator is the number of bloody splotches in the road on the interstates. Route 81 coming south out of Binghamton, NY and going south to Scranton is just about the worst stretch of highway anywhere for deer hits. Vermont and Maine are overflowing with moose and deer.
Route 88 and 86 from Albany, NY to Erie, PA are a good place to avoid from dusk until an hour after sunrise as well.
Now, let's talk about mule deer in Wyoming and Montana...
Here in York County, southcentral PA, deer are numerous, so are homes and it's becoming too dangerous to hunt with high-powered rifles anymore. Soon, it'll shotguns and slugs. Up north, deer are more scarce because there aren't as many homes and people, so the deer population is kept well under control.
Ah, yes. As a low-brow yahoo, I hate it when these yuppies move out here and start changing things.
Some of the hunter's lack of sucess is self-inflicted too (at times). Down here in NC, you can drive into certain areas and see a sea of orange clothing about 200-400 yards from the road. I typically trek back 2+ miles in to set up, and have above average hunting sucess. Many of these hunter wannabes simply need to get off their a$$es and get in the woods. The automobile is a wonderful thing, but it has turned many into lazy slobs.
Yes --- but it's just that not all who call themselves hunters are really hunters --- there are some who are having more fun pretending they're hunters --- drinking tons of beer and shooting everything in sight. They give the real hunters a bad name. The best tasting deer are those corn-fed ones that raid the farmers corn fields and gardens. Very tender meat.
Creepy. You were posting at the same moment/roughly the same exact thought.
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