While Japan is infamous for its 1000/yr pseudo-scientific "Research"
whaling and 22,000/yr dolphin slaughter, and Canada is notorious for its
300,000/yr Newfoundland seal hunt and the environmentally disastrous
Alberta tar sands, the United States has an open secret, just as ugly,
of wildlife exploitation that is little known to even those who have
been fighting American-style trophy hunting for years.
In name, it is presented to the public by the consistently
pro-hunting governments as "urban wildlife management". In fact, it is
urban deer slaughter on a massive scale that is spreading like wildfire
from city to city across the land. The executioners vary, from expensive
sharpshooters who charge $300-$500 per deer, to cruel captive-bolt
operators who attempt to shoot steel bolts into the thrashing head of
the victim, often missing the brain and hitting the eyes, and, most
despicable of all, bow-hunters, whose statistical non-lethal wounding
rate approximates 50% of all deer shot. While the sharpshooters and
captive-bolters do it for money, the bow hunters do it for fun, pure and
simple. And by urban deer "culling" by how-hunters, we're talking about
them shooting deer with arrows in people's backyards. In fact, almost
all of the urban-deer-slaughters-by-bow-hunters are driven by the
bow-hunting lobby/community/industry.
More often than not, the deer "overpopulation" problem, if/when it
exists, is deliberately cultivated by the hunting community for an
excessiveness of deer for hunting purposes, which then offers itself as
the solution to the "problem" as a "favor" to the public. Case in point
- The Trexler Wildlife Preserve in Allentown PA. After 70 years of
no-hunting in the preserve with respect to the dying wish of General
Trexler, they reopened the preserve to bow-hunting in the name of
ecological protection of the preserve. On opening day, I went into the
preserve with local activists Carol Loomis and Cheryl Baker, admidst
hoards of hunters hefting lethal-looking compound bows and quivers of
broad-head arrows. And what did we see? If I were blind-folded and
driven into the preserve, then have the blind-fold removed, I would have
guessed that I was in a farm. Acres of forest had been plowed down, with
food-plots of deer clover planted there instead, row on row. Deer, when
well nourished, will maximize their reproductive potential, giving birth
to twins and triplets instead of none or singlets. And this is what the
bow-hunters wanted, and did - wreck the forest, plant food-plots, max
out the deer reproductive rate, claim ecological damage by deer
overpopulation, offer themselves as saviors of the preserve, go in and
shoot deer with bow-and-arrow. And we saw some of the results.
To find the perfect solution, the first thing to realize is that
culling as a population control measure does not work. Take a piece of
land with a carry capacity of, say 8 does. If it contains 10 does, their
total fawn crop would be around 3 fawns, totaling 13 deer at the end of
the year. Whereas, if the 10 does were reduced to 5 by culling, the
remaining 5 does would produce around 8 fawns in total, resulting again
in 13 deer at the end of the year. This is called the Compensatory
Rebound Effect (CRE). The hunters know this, but the public does not,
thus allowing the hunters to have their self-perpetuating way.
The civilized solution for the Trexler Preserve, even if there is
ecological damage due to deer, is to first eliminate the food-plots, and
practice birth-control of deer, as we do cats, dogs and humans. The
technology of Immuno-Contraception (IC) is mature, technically ready for
field application, and approved by the FDA (2007). Unfortunately, all
governments on all levels, without a single exception that I've seen -
and I've seen a lot in my last 6 Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions
(CARE tours - see www.HOPE-CARE.org) - are not only pro-hunting, but run
by hunters. The state policy of New Jersey , for example, is that of the
11 voting members of its Fish and Game Department at least 6 must be
hunters, and in fact, all 11 were hunters the last time I checked.
Hunters dread IC like the plague, and the governments have denied real
world IC application since Day 1. However, due to the proven
effectiveness of the IC technology, they seldom attack the vaccine
itself, but its methods of delivery, citing expensiveness as the leading
objection.
In this they are not totally wrong. The current methods of vaccine
delivery are indeed expensive, often costing several hundred dollars per
deer, when the vaccine itself costs less than $30 per dose. The remote
delivery method (darting), is unreliable (e.g. dart hitting bone), labor
intensive, incomprehensive (since not all deer can be approached within
darting range), and tagging of vaccinated deer impermanent; it is also
restricted to the single-year liquid vaccine, thus necessitating
repeated annual applications. Multi-year pellets have to be manually
injected by syringe, so deer have to first be captured. This is done
currently by cage-traps. A cage trap can usually capture only one deer
per day, often overnight, and sometimes it captures an already
vaccinated deer. The deer will then have to be wrestled to the ground by
two operators when a third will inject the vaccine. The trapping process
and the physical handling have been known to be so traumatic as to cause
heart-attacks in the deer. Thus, all in all, both methods leave a lot to
be desired, and are both labor-wise very expensive.
In view of this, I have proposed an alternative method of vaccine
delivery employing a device called the Deer-Auto-Assembler (DAA). This
is a method of assembling deer I invented while working in deer control
around India 's tiger reserves. It is simple, effective, labor-unintensive
and therefore inexpensive, and eminently adoptable for vaccine delivery
in North America . Basically, it involves creating a fenced area with
one or more entrance one-way-gates around the perimeter, and one exit
one-way-gate at the end of a narrow chute wide enough for only one deer
at a time. Enticed by food, deer will enter the DAA through the entrance
gate(s). After enough deer have entered, and it could take days without
the need for human supervision, the entrance gate(s) can be locked, and
the food can be moved to the end of the narrow chute right next to the
exit gate. The chute should be draped in black fabric so that the deer
will be calm and the human operator concealed from view. Near the food
trough, where the feeding deer's rump would be, a U-shaped incision is
cut in the fabric, creating a hole covered by a flap. When the deer is
feeding, the flap is lifted, the pellet is injected, the tag is
attached, and the deer is then free to leave the DAA through the exit
gate. Other than constructing the DAA initially, very little human labor
is needed to operate it.
Even without the use of IC, the DAA can still be employed to achieve
its own end. Suppose the government says that the maximum allowable
concentration is 20 deer per sq. mi., and the total area of a small city
is 5 sq. mi., the maximum allowable deer population would be 100. If the
total population is 110, the bow-hunters would clammer for 20 deer
culled by bow-and-arrow in that city, leaving 90. This will create a
food surplus, which will lead to a high reproductive rate, raising the
total population back up to 110 or higher the next year, thus justifying
another round of slaughter the next year, and the year after that, ad
infinitum. With a DAA, no slaughter is needed, and no ecological damage
is done. All that needs to be done is to allow 10 does to enter the DAA,
and keep them there by supplementary feeding indefinitely. If no bucks
are allowed in the DAA during the rut, the does would not reproduce. The
outside population will be 200, their reproductive rate will be low, and
no environmental damge is done. The DAA can be made visually attractive
by constructing it half in sunlight and half in forest shade, to serve
as a deer viewing facility. I have seen such deer viewing enclosures in
which the setting is beautiful and the deer look healthy and relaxed.
All this said, I have to point out that we live in a conservative
society in which "outside of the box" ideas are not readily accepted.
The DAA concept is one such idea, and so far has not been taken
seriously, even by some in the anti-hunting community. But if we want to
defeat the urban deer slaughter, I strongly believe that the DAA is the
perfect solution.
Anthony Marr, founder and president
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.ARConference.org
604-222-1169
Since
