I'm a vet student in the Northeast, and suffice to say we have quite a large population of deer in our area. I was recently involved in a class regarding methods to control deer population and even more recently became aware of a group of people who almost seem to think of the deer as their pets, and are against almost every form of control mentioned to them. Some of the people involved in this group are incredibly difficult to talk to in a productive manner and I think that's sad because I'm sure these people may have good ideas they could share, or even be interested in helping to implement them.
So I was curious to see what the people of BYC thought. I hope this conversation can remain civil and I would love to hear different sides and maybe even what your towns do about deer.
A little background on the area I go to school in:
Its a very strange area, as we have lots of farms, but interspersed in these rural areas are some very suburban populated and even upscale neighborhoods. The campus has implemented a few methods to control deer in the very immediate area, but as you can imagine, it is not easy.
One of their trial methods was spaying the female deer, since does tend to stay in a very confined homerange, whereas bucks tend to travel over many miles to mate with does. They were actually able to spay a very high number of the deer, but initially there was an increase in the deer population, as the females could no longer give the signal that they were pregnant, but they still ovulated. (I think tubal ligations were done) And incredible number of bucks migrated to the area to try and mate with these females, and in turn this stressed out the females. Now it seems the population is slowly starting to decline, but it is estimated we will not see a dramatic change until about 15-20 years from now. There were no restrictions on the hunting of these deer. The school only asked that you return the radio collars and report the death of that deer. This seems to be working ok, but as you can imagine, the cost of this was astronomical. With each deer you spayed, it was more and more difficult to catch the remaining ones. So that required more time and more man-power.
Another method has been the capture and euthanasia by captive bolt gun. Despite increased hunting season and less restrictions placed on the number of deer a hunter can harvest, it is just not enough. So the school has been catching what they can and putting them down. I'm not sure who is familiar with captive bolt, but it is similar to using a regular gun (which is one of the most humane ways IMO to euthanize an animal if done correctly. The only difference is that a captive bolt is contained within the chamber and is safe to use in populated areas. It is used in almost every slaughterhouse in the US and is commonly used by large animal practitioners to euthanize horses, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, etc. It's not a pretty thing to see, but it is quick, safe, and less stressful for the animal. The problem with chemical euthanasia in these larger animals is that any animal that may potentially prey on the carcass will also be killed. There have been issues where many people were sued when endangered birds fed on the carcass of chemically euthanized animals. The other issue is that finding a vein is not always easy OR quick. This can stress an animal out even more.
A third method that has been suggested is contraception called PZP. It is an injection that is effective, but only for two years. You still have the problem of females ovulating and attracting bucks. You also still have to initially capture the does to tag and start records. Then you need people both trained to use dart guns (which I can say from experience is NOT easy, as hunters may also attest to! You only get one shot and it has to be correctly placed) and people to go out and find these deer. Once again, the more you do, the harder it is to find the remaining deer. (The use of radio collars helps, but it another expense) Then you have to repeat this every two years. In a popularly cited paper showing the results of this method (I can find it if anyone is interested), this method DOES show a 50% decrease in deer population over five years, but this is in a fenced population. In actual deer populations, you often have new deer migrating for new territory.
I do think hunting regulations could be changed to make it more effective. I think the major problem is that hunters just cannot use that many deer, and many of the hunters I've spoken to do not want a deer to go to waste. I think changing regulations so that the meat could be potentially sold or donated would make a huge difference (Thought I realize there are disease concerns since deer are not regulated or "owned") I also think hunting is important as almost all of the money from hunting licenses go towards the conservation of wildlife. We have some awesome hunters around here and they get such a bad rap from people who just judge and don't bother to ask questions.
So I'm just curious to see what your thoughts are and maybe what you personally do or your town does. A big problem with this area is that they deer like to hide in residential areas where guns cannot be set off. Thus the captive bolt method.
So I was curious to see what the people of BYC thought. I hope this conversation can remain civil and I would love to hear different sides and maybe even what your towns do about deer.
A little background on the area I go to school in:
Its a very strange area, as we have lots of farms, but interspersed in these rural areas are some very suburban populated and even upscale neighborhoods. The campus has implemented a few methods to control deer in the very immediate area, but as you can imagine, it is not easy.
One of their trial methods was spaying the female deer, since does tend to stay in a very confined homerange, whereas bucks tend to travel over many miles to mate with does. They were actually able to spay a very high number of the deer, but initially there was an increase in the deer population, as the females could no longer give the signal that they were pregnant, but they still ovulated. (I think tubal ligations were done) And incredible number of bucks migrated to the area to try and mate with these females, and in turn this stressed out the females. Now it seems the population is slowly starting to decline, but it is estimated we will not see a dramatic change until about 15-20 years from now. There were no restrictions on the hunting of these deer. The school only asked that you return the radio collars and report the death of that deer. This seems to be working ok, but as you can imagine, the cost of this was astronomical. With each deer you spayed, it was more and more difficult to catch the remaining ones. So that required more time and more man-power.
Another method has been the capture and euthanasia by captive bolt gun. Despite increased hunting season and less restrictions placed on the number of deer a hunter can harvest, it is just not enough. So the school has been catching what they can and putting them down. I'm not sure who is familiar with captive bolt, but it is similar to using a regular gun (which is one of the most humane ways IMO to euthanize an animal if done correctly. The only difference is that a captive bolt is contained within the chamber and is safe to use in populated areas. It is used in almost every slaughterhouse in the US and is commonly used by large animal practitioners to euthanize horses, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, etc. It's not a pretty thing to see, but it is quick, safe, and less stressful for the animal. The problem with chemical euthanasia in these larger animals is that any animal that may potentially prey on the carcass will also be killed. There have been issues where many people were sued when endangered birds fed on the carcass of chemically euthanized animals. The other issue is that finding a vein is not always easy OR quick. This can stress an animal out even more.
A third method that has been suggested is contraception called PZP. It is an injection that is effective, but only for two years. You still have the problem of females ovulating and attracting bucks. You also still have to initially capture the does to tag and start records. Then you need people both trained to use dart guns (which I can say from experience is NOT easy, as hunters may also attest to! You only get one shot and it has to be correctly placed) and people to go out and find these deer. Once again, the more you do, the harder it is to find the remaining deer. (The use of radio collars helps, but it another expense) Then you have to repeat this every two years. In a popularly cited paper showing the results of this method (I can find it if anyone is interested), this method DOES show a 50% decrease in deer population over five years, but this is in a fenced population. In actual deer populations, you often have new deer migrating for new territory.
I do think hunting regulations could be changed to make it more effective. I think the major problem is that hunters just cannot use that many deer, and many of the hunters I've spoken to do not want a deer to go to waste. I think changing regulations so that the meat could be potentially sold or donated would make a huge difference (Thought I realize there are disease concerns since deer are not regulated or "owned") I also think hunting is important as almost all of the money from hunting licenses go towards the conservation of wildlife. We have some awesome hunters around here and they get such a bad rap from people who just judge and don't bother to ask questions.
So I'm just curious to see what your thoughts are and maybe what you personally do or your town does. A big problem with this area is that they deer like to hide in residential areas where guns cannot be set off. Thus the captive bolt method.
