[Ed. Note:
By Susan Russell, Wildlife Policy Specialist, League of Humane Voters of New Jersey, August 2011
It is not fashionable to defend this beleaguered species. Conservation
groups partnered with gun, ammunition and archery manufacturers
(“nature-related businesses”) exuberantly pursue the systematic killing of
deer, even in our back yards. Commercial partners who caused the problem
profit from de-regulation and increased hunter access to private and public
land. The trade has identified both as necessary for (sharply declining)
client retention and recruitment.
With a wink and a nod, the seminal cause of artificial abundance, and mitigating science, remain resolutely off the table. All are important in resolving the problem, where it exists.
Blame for degraded conditions at Morristown National Historical Park has
fallen solely on the white-tailed deer. The Park Service acknowledges that
many of its proposals are based on hypotheses.
Deer numbers have not spontaneously “exploded;” the species was pushed.
The first order of business is to stop the pushing.
The second is instilling a modicum of ethics in how civil society treats
timid animals that are farmed as “crops” for the amusement, and profit, of
so few.
The third is to usher interests who sell bullets out of the
“conservation” business, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.
Antiquated game management policies conflict with broader science and
societal needs.
The National Park Service had for decades resisted managing park lands to
maximize deer and recreational hunting. As a result, and with natural
fluctuations, the MNHP deer population remained stable.
In 1975, researchers stipulated that the unhunted deer at Jockey Hollow
were not damaging the understory. “But look at the 1980s,” say kill
advocates. By all means: In 1977, the Journal of Wildlife Management
reported that “deer herds are being managed with ever-increasing intensity,
with a primary management plan of increasing the productivity of the
whitetail deer through habitat manipulation and harvest regulation.”
For decades, the killing of males forced unnaturally high reproduction,
as did habitat manipulation. In less than ideal habitat, 38 percent of does
bear twins at hunted sites, versus 14 percent at non-hunted sites. In
optimum habitat, killing keeps birth rates high. Depending on the ratio,
killing females can keep a high density population “productive.” Killing too
many deer can lead to population collapse.
Jockey Hollow is not an ecological island. Ultimately, the park and its
deer were influenced by outside “game” management, pervasive hunting,
development, and, early on, Park Service failure to mechanically remove
invasive Japanese barberry.
The cumulative impacts began to be seen during the 1980s. There are seven
Wildlife Management Areas in Morris County. Black River WMA “enhances” deer
breeding range; on its outskirts, townships kill deer as pests. Burning and
early succession, or deer range, are current conservation vogues. The Morris
County Parks Commission and New Jersey Audubon exacerbated matters by
initiating sustained hunts at Lewis Morris Park, adjacent to MNHP, and 16
other parks. Deer respond to human predation by moving deeper into forests
and unhunted tracts. Hunted does will expand their home range by 30 percent.
Game managers indict the native whitetail for not consuming Jockey
Hollow’s non-native Japanese barberry, and for browsing on what is left of
the native understory. Japanese barberry, once promoted by game agencies, is
highly invasive in the absence of deer, its seed spread by birds. Barberry’s
roots are shallow but tough, it grows several feet tall, and it shades out
native plants. Exclosure studies in Connecticut show Japanese barberry
within, and without, deer exclosures.
The whitetail is a keystone herbivore that has co-evolved with forests
for 3.4 million to 3.9 million years.
“The Science of Overabundance” (Smithsonian) cautioned that absent
adequate science, “management should not continue to reduce deer numbers
systematically to enhance woody tree production because this may have dire
consequences for the entire ecosystem.”
According to Yale University studies (2010), deer density is not a
leading factor in determining variation in vegetation impacts across western
Connecticut: “the empirical basis for presumptions that white-tailed deer
cause forest regeneration failure is limited.”
“Species diversity was generally higher outside of deer exclosures,”
reports another Connecticut study, “smaller canopy trees seemed to benefit
from deer browsing.”
2004 studies conclude that white-tailed deer represent a significant
vector of seed dispersal for hundreds of native plant species across North
America landscape. The Smithsonian also makes this point.
Studies in Virginia show that deer affect “only the smaller stage classes
of trees likely to die due to other limiting factors” and do not, as the
Park Service plan says, affect forest canopy diversity down the line unless
other disturbances — proposed by the Service — are present.
Thinning tree canopies and “controlled” burning proposed by the Park
Service are deer range management, and will both draw deer and lead to
higher reproduction.
According to forestry experts: “Typically, a forest that consisted
primarily of large oak trees may naturally reproduce to become one in which
oak is a minor component or absent altogether.”
If you’ve heard none of this, ask why.
It is not fashionable to defend this beleaguered species. Conservation
groups partnered with gun, ammunition and archery manufacturers
(“nature-related businesses”) exuberantly pursue the systematic killing of
deer, even in our back yards. Commercial partners who caused the problem
profit from de-regulation and increased hunter access to private and public
land. The trade has identified both as necessary for (sharply declining)
client retention and recruitment.
With a wink and a nod, the seminal cause of artificial abundance, and
mitigating science, remain resolutely off the table. All are important in
resolving the problem, where it exists.
The partners’ steering committee, dominated by shooting interests,
pursues “mutually beneficial” management. Micro-managed habitat, “good” and
“bad” native species, both plant and animal, “preferred” species, killing
natural predators, large and small, so that humans may shoot them, and deer,
which leads to more killing — designer forests. Except that 99 percent of
the public is not in on the private deal, “commodity-based conservation.”
This is 2011. Our forests and our wildlife are national treasures. They are not owned by unseemly partnerships based on, and perpetuating, 19th century attitudes and mistakes.
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