What do you think about this deer population control plan?

Question

In upstate NY, the deer population has gotten so high and out of control that they are all over and becoming a nuisance! They are in the roads, eating gardens, and most importantly, causing certain forest areas to recess because every single time a new seedling sprouts, the deer come along and eat it! Plus you can't kill the female deer, only the bucks, and somehow the few bucks are making babies with many females.

So to remedy this, Cornell University (Ivy league college in Ithaca) is trying a new approach to limit the deer population. They are catching female deer and spaying them, basically fixing them so that they cannot have babies! I kid you not. To me, this seems crazy! I mean it could work but the amount of time and money being spent on catching and spaying individual deer, it just seems extremely inefficient. Your ideas?

Answer 1

It seems crazy to me  I'm not sure why they aren't allowing female deer to be hunted, most states and areas do allow doe tags for hunting.  It makes sense because if you only kill Buck's you limit the deer gene pool which can cause problems and we all know fewer bucks don't do a lot to control the population since one buck can populate an in numerable amount of does.  

EDIT:  I looked up Cornell's current plan and it's called Earn a Buck.  Which REQUIRES you to harvest two Does before you can take a Buck.  This program is working better for them than a sterillization program.  

I'm not sure where you get your info. While sterilization has been considered an option since 2003 they still prefer Doe to be harvested.

Cornell is ENCOURAGING people to hunt Does not forbidding it.

http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/arnot/public/...

Answer 2

I think that the university's control plan is not the right way to control the population of the deers. Instead, they should gather all or most of the deers into a forest, place a fence around them and place some wolves in there with the deers. The wolves would eat some of the deers, and then over time, the population of the deers and wolves will become equal, and you won't have a problem with the population of the deers all over the place.

Answer 3

Well, as for the deer population plan, I say it's the most humane.

But when will the leaders come up with a human population plan? Just think.. If we could capture all thos ethiopian women and spay them, and do the same thing to the rest of the world too.

Hey, here's a thought. Wouldn't it be cool of the deer came up with a people population plan?

Answer 4

Stupid. Hunting controls population while raising money for maintaining the habitat they live in.

Hunters get supplemental meat for the season.

Answer 5

Kill them all!

Answer 6

actually the wolf idea is brilliant!

Answer 7

there is usually a natural balance in any environment between a food source and any animal species. this is called a "carrying capacity." this is essentially how many individuals can be sustained in a region with a limited food source.

what happens naturally is that the population will increase to the point where they will diminish the food source enough so that the amount of individuals that can be sustained will decrease. after a decrease in population, the food source will again rebound due to fewer individuals feeding. the abundance of food then leads to an increase in population and the whole cycle begins over again.

http://www.outdooralabama.com/hunting/OM...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_ca...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_fu...

if the people who are in charge of "controlling" the deer population were into foresight, they would take a look at the food source of the deer and examine why there is a sudden spike in the population in your area.