As a young child, I was told that the individual who knows the most about a topic is usually the one who listens instead of telling others what they know. As a young adult who can sit in the local tavern and listen to other adults complain about the lack of deer which they have been seeing during the past few hunting seasons, it has been brought to my attention that I am not the only person who has noticed a drop in the herd within the past 10 years. Many hunters complain about being able to bait or not and how it affects their hunting, or how poaching has had an impact in certain areas. There are also many stories of how wolves or bears harm the population in the northern regions of the state. I strongly feel that harvesting a doe before being able to harvest an antlered deer has been the true issue which has affected the deer herds the most within the state of Wisconsin. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you kill off the female population within a species, it will not take long at all for that population to struggle to remain as strong as it has been previously.
I strongly feel that insurance companies are the biggest harm to our Wisconsin deer population at this point in time. The number of car crashes that have directly been caused by deer in the last decade has undoubtedly gone through the roof. What we forget to consider within these increasing amounts of car crashes is the increase of the human population. Not just the increase of human population, but when there are more citizens, there is an increased demand for transportation, which means more cars! In the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there are about 1.5 million car accidents with deer each year that result in $1 billion in vehicle damage. One billion dollars is an immense amount of money to try to understand, but when the deer population hits rock bottom and there is no more game to pursue, it directly affects the local economy state wide. When you stop to think of every gas station, grocery store, restaurant, bowling alley, or local tavern who sees the highest amount of annual income during a ten day span every single year just abruptly stop, the affect is just a little more than one billion dollars. If our lack of deer herd continues the way it has been, there are a large amount of hunters who will just give up hunting and start buying beef from the local markets or farmers. In my mind, Wisconsin had some of the best deer hunting land in the entire nation, which drew out of state residents’ attention and is suffering to hold on to local support in purchasing kill permits. I think it is a positive step toward the regrowth of the deer herd to eliminate the earn-a- buck law in efforts to restore the White-tailed deer population, along with the economy, within the state of Wisconsin.
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/deer-accident-statistics.html
4 comments:
Although I disagree that there is a problem with the size of our deer herd here in wisconsin, I have to agree with you that the millions of miles of highways present a definate problem to the whitetail Deer. Perhaps something should be done so whitetail deer can somehow safely cross our highways and county roads. unfortunately when it comes to the costs of doing it, the average public doesn't see it the same way as we do as something that has to be done. Perhaps, lowering speed limits by 10 or 20 mph in areas with higher deer population would be a good idea.
I have to disagree that the deer population is declining. There is damage to the forests from over grazing and crops from overgrazing. The roads are littered with deer carcasses. I find it hard to believe that higher densities of humans are the driving factor of increased car crashes. It doesn’t make sense that more cars and less deer equal more crashes. More deer and more cars could equal more crashes. I really can’t agree that car insurance companies are the biggest threat to deer herds in Wisconsin.
The ecosystems are not meant to support 50 or more deer/acre. If the DNR is doing the job right there should be declining numbers in the deer population. I don’t think that the correct number of deer has even been met yet. Meaning that the population of deer should come down more yet. As far as baiting is concerned, there is a very good reason for this. Bringing many deer together in an unnatural feeding only helps to spread disease. CDW is a big concern for Wisconsin, how would it be if there were no more deer due to this awful illness.
The reduction of speed is definitely something to think about. We could at least consider lowering speed limits after daylight hours in order to give the drivers a better chance of avoiding accidents.
The deer population in certain areas of the state is causing overgrazing to forests and crops. Those certain areas have herd control tags that are given to farmers in order to control the population. 50 or more deer per acre? Really? Chronic Wasting Disease or CWD, not CDW.
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