<< Back 6/19/02 The Naturalist's Corner By Don Hendershot A piece about white-tailed deer overpopulation has been making its way around the circuit recently. The article, by Ted Williams, first appeared in the March edition of Audubon magazine, titled “Wanted: More Hunters” where the intro claimed, “The U.S. whitetail population is out of control. Not only are deer starving by the thousands, they’re laying waste to entire ecosystems. There is only one solution.” And that solution would be, in the words of pro-hunting and Second Amendment advocates’ poster boy and aging rocker Ted Nugent, “Whack ‘em, stack ‘em and pack ‘em.” An abbreviated form of the article titled “Protecting Nature from Deer” with the same type of sensational lead, “What is the most dangerous and destructive wild animal in America? White-tailed deer kill, maim and sicken thousands of people each year,” was printed by the syndicated service, Blue Ridge Press, and has been picked up by numerous news outlets. I believe the article is lacking from both a journalistic and biological perspective. The Audubon piece is longer, and Mr. Williams is able to go into greater detail, but both articles are crafted through a series of definable emotional arguments. Mr. Williams lists statistics and figures to show the mushrooming of deer populations and concludes with the statement, “In South Carolina there are now so many deer that in much of the coastal plain you can legally kill as many as you like every day all year.” This example is actually a combination of two emotional arguments; argument through intimidation — Mr. Williams has figures and percentages and statistics, he’s obviously done his research; and argument of consequences — because of all these scientific facts, you and Ted can legally “whack ‘em” all day, every day in much of the coastal plain of South Carolina. The problem I have with this argument is when I go to South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources website (www.dnr.state.sc.us/etc/rulesregs/ rulesregs.html), I find opened and closed seasons and regulations regarding bag limits in all the coastal plain zones (5-11.) There are zones, where on private land, during season, there is no limit on bucks. A far cry from the carte blanche suggested by Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams also resorts to the argument ad hominem. He picks a fall guy, in this case the deceased Cleveland Amory, founder of Friends for Animals, cites an outlandish quote, “All animals will not only not be shot, they will be protected — not only from people but as much as possible from each other. Prey will be separated from predator, and there will be no overpopulation, because all will be controlled by sterilization or implant.” Then posits that the only people opposed to his theory that increased carnage is the salvation of the white-tail and the environment are “ecological illiterates,” like Cleveland Amory and any member of any animal advocacy group. It works like this. I note that gun guru Charlton Heston has called Nugent “one of the good guys.” I will also point out the endorsements on Nugent’s web pages — “We need more men like Ted Nugent in positions of leadership. What he says is always refreshing. The only way to encourage people to take up hunting and the great outdoors,as opposed to alcohol and drugs, is by example set by people like Ted,” according to Eric Scheie, an attorney in Berkeley, Cailf. And what does this good guy who is always refreshing have to say: “I contribute to dead winter and the moans of silence, blood trails are music to my ears... I’m a gut pile addict... The pig didn’t know I was there... It’s my kick... I love shafting animals... it’s rock ‘n’ roll power,” said Nugent in Bowhunters Magazine. “Music is always raved about as the universal communication, but, boy, if you don’t celebrate in the universal communication, especially the tribal scream and the tribal rhythms, the dynamic of sex, meat and overwhelming your enemy: That’s life, baby, and that’s what I feel when I pick up the guitar or the bow,” Nugent from a CNN interview. Then I seal the deal by intimating that Nugent, who evaded the draft by not bathing and defecating and urinating in his clothes for a week before appearing before his local draft board, is the hero and spokesman for all hunters and their families across the nation. Do you think this is an equitable argument? Neither is positing Amory as spokesperson for everyone who has a different opinion about controlling deer overpopulation. The sensational tone and the arguments of intimidation and guilt by association are better left to tabloids. I believe it is a mistake to take this tactic when Mr. Williams has raised an important social and environmental issue. Deer are becoming a nuisance in some landscapes and something should be done. But saying the only answer is killing more deer and anyone who disagrees is an “ecological illiterate” is over-simplistic and in my opinion demonstrably wrong. Mr. Williams notes the origin of the problem briefly in the Blue Ridge piece and with more depth in the Audubon story. The problem is the mismanagement of deer by biologists and wildlife agencies across the U.S. “Most state game and fish agencies are funded largely by fishing and hunting licenses and taxes on sporting equipment, so they tend to cater to the appetites of sportsmen instead of their long-term interests. You would get the same curricula in schools where the kids signed the teachers’ paychecks,” Williams writes. Wildlife agencies knew which side their bread was buttered on, wanted the butter, knew how to obtain the butter and made a conscious decision to go for it. “We will attempt to increase the number of deer until we experience high incidences of deer-car collisions, depredation of agricultural crops becomes intolerable and/or the effects on deer habitat begin to result in deterioration. Why? To increase the success rate of big game hunters,” said Terry Moore, regional wildlife manager for New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, in 1978. From a biological perspective, game managers know that manipulating habitat, creating food plots and killing a large percentage of white-tail deer (especially bucks) just before winter jump-starts reproduction. For decades across this country, hunters have been taking more and more deer and the population has been increasing. Skewing the sex ratio, by killing an inordinate percentage of bucks, only provides more fawn producing does for the polygamous white-tail males. A 1995 exercise on a ranch in Texas even showed that killing does could produce an increase in population: “After shooting 100 does, the ranch actually had more fawns than it did the year before. Because of the significant doe harvest, the fawns’ survival rate increased from 25 percent (four does to rear one fawn to weaning age) to 120 percent (1.2 fawns per doe),” said North American Hunter magazine. On the face, it is not convincing biology that we will simply be able to kill our way out of this dilemma, unless perhaps we went back to market hunting and wholesale slaughter. Another biological discrepancy in Mr. Williams’ article is the statement, “A 10-year study by the U.S. Forest Service reveals that at more than 20 deer per square mile you lose shrub nesters including least flycatchers, eastern wood pewees, indigo buntings, yellow-billed cuckoos and cerulean warblers.” One would hope that USFS biologists have enough training to know that eastern wood pewees and cerulean warblers are not shrub nesters. In the Audubon article, Mr. Williams uses the Crane Estate near Boston as a backdrop and as proof that killing deer is the answer to overpopulation. The Crane Estate, according to the author, successfully restored balance by having sharpshooters come in and cull the deer herd. Perhaps this worked for the Crane Estate. It doesn’t take much research, however, to find places where this approach didn’t work: Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Lewis Morris County Park and Watchung Reservation in New Jersey are three. Also, Mr. Williams’ articles fail to mention that there appear to be stable, un-hunted populations of white-tailed deer. Sightline magazine published on behalf of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by the University of Tennessee reports in its spring 2002 issue: “The deer like to graze in the Cove’s [Cades Cove] open spaces and are prolific there, but the current population is markedly smaller than in previous years. “Spotlight counts in the 1970s routinely produced 300 deer,” park service biologist Bill Stiver said. “We’re lucky to get 100 now.” “That is not necessarily a bad thing, he said, because the Cove’s smaller population of deer is now stable and healthy. He knows this because in addition to the spotlight counts, five deer are harvested every second year to evaluate the herd from a health standpoint. Weight checks and parasite counts indicate the level of stress on deer in the Cove. Recent evaluations indicate that the deer herd is within the Cove’s carrying capacity.” The Audubon piece also ends on an emotional note that has no relevance to biological science: “It has taken a few years, but now, with hunters assuming the role of wolves and cougars, the estate is a wildlife refuge in fact as well as name.” Most wildlife biologists are too grounded in science to equate hunters with natural predators. “Hunting has never been a necessary adjunct to population control, and it is highly dangerous to assume that hunting animals can act as a substitute for any mortality. It produces its own set of population characteristics distinct from any other type of mortality factor. Those that claim hunting is a necessary management tool for population control are actually referring to its theoretical role in managing a population to achieve a specific goal (i.e. hunting.) No one will ever be so rash to claim that if there’s no hunting, the population will grow to infinity or sink to extinction. In fact, hunting maximizes fawn production ...more animals are produced for the gun,” W. Evans, Ph.D. and assistant director of New Mexico Department of Fish and Game in 1978. I appreciate the fact that Mr. Williams is raising this issue. I hope plenty of biologists, ecologists and game managers join in the debate. And I hope good science leads to a solution that includes the best interests of white-tailed deer, individually and collectively as paramount as the interests of any and all other stakeholders. I believe the solution of enlisting more hunters to kill more deer is a bit myopic. It’s like someone deciding General Motors is manufacturing too many cars and decides the way to combat this is by purchasing more cars. (Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)