Out of Control, Deer Send Ecosystem Into Chaos nytimes.com
[ before I started gardening, I thought deer were cute. Now - rats on hooves. Never forgave them for eating my Metasequoia Glyptostroboides. ]
RONT ROYAL, Va. — In Posey Hollow, tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains, Dr. William J. McShea was inspecting a forest primeval — 10 acres of oaks, wild yam vines, seedlings and shrubs that made an ideal home for nesting songbirds and scurrying small mammals.
But he had to look through an eight-foot deer fence to see it. Where he stood, the forest was trimmed from eye level to earth as if by an army of obsessive landscapers. Mature trees stood unharmed, but oak seedlings were nipped in the bud. The only things thriving were Japanese barberry and other nonnative flora, plants that deer cannot digest.
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In the last decade, from the Rockies to New England and the Deep South, rural and suburban areas have been beset by white-tailed deer gnawing shrubbery and crops, spreading disease and causing hundreds of thousands of auto wrecks.
But the deer problem has proved even more profound, biologists say. Fast-multiplying herds are altering the ecology of forests, stripping them of native vegetation and eliminating niches for other wildlife.
Varmints of old were mainly predators, Dr. McShea said, but this is the age of the marauding herbivore.
"I don't want to paint deer as Eastern devils," said Dr. McShea, a wildlife biologist associated with the National Zoo in Washington, "but this is indicative of what happens when an ecosystem is out of whack." The damage is worse than anyone expected, he and other scientists say.
In the West, mule deer and blacktailed deer sometimes cause problems, but it is mainly in the more densely suburbanized East and Midwest where whitetails are causing the most trouble for people and ecosystems.
Deer Draw Cougars Ever Eastward nytimes.com
[ I prefer the wolf solution myself, despite the fairy tale rap, there's never been a recorded incident of a healthy wolf attacking a human. Closer to home, we got this problem where the deer herd has been managed for the hunters forever , to the point that a year or two ago my home state set a record for annual hunt harvest for any state. Turns out there were some problems with managing deer for the hunter's pleasure, though. ]
Hearts Heavy, Hunters Stalk Ailing Deer query.nytimes.com |
