This is starting to sound like a "Perfect vs. Good" argument, as in "The
perfect becomes the enemy of the good."

Protection and preservation of our seriously beleaguered natural communities
and ecosystems is a very high level Good.

One can be highly principled in adhering a standard of personal behavior
that forbids killing of animals, or doing anything that contributes to the
killing of animals, e.g. become a vegan, which may be a very high level
personal Good.

However, universally applying such a standard (the Perfect) can create an
inverted tragedy of the commons:  unchecked deer herds decimate entire
natual communities.

Systematically applying checks to a destructive force (a rampantly
over-populated deer herd) that is ravaging our remnant natural heritage is a
contributory good to the higher good of ecosytem and natural communities
protection.

In a perfect world, perhaps, Iowa would be a wilderness of prairie, savanna,
forest, and wetlands.  Free-ranging wolf packs, stalking cougars, lumbering
bears, and stealthy coyotes would check deer and elk populations.  And when
the predators had held sway too long and deer got scarce, the fang-bearers
would decline, and their prey would rebound.

I would love to see enough wolves and cougars to compete around here with
Iowa deer hunters.  And just how likely is that?

I'm for orchids.  And white pine seedlings.  Low nesting warblers.

Our industrial farmers are giving deer more than enough help...at the
expense of orchids, white pines, warblers, and so much else.

I don't shoot deer, but I do approve others' taking good aim.  Often.


Bill Witt


*PS.  Personal disclaimer:  If somebody gives me a nice venison roast, I
will roast it (with onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, olive oil, rosemary,
bay leaves and a bit of chicken broth), and then I'll uncork a nice Bordeaux
to wash it down.  (I'm only suffering through all this for the orchids'
sake, of course.)*

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Cindy Hildebrand <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

>  Phyllis, I'm afraid I still don't really understand.  To me, it seems
> obvious that killing wolves so that human hunters will have more caribou and
> moose to hunt is very different than killing deer so that many species of
> orchids, lilies, butterflies, songbirds, and herps won't decline or
> even disappear.  In certain parts of the East Coast where deer hunting is
> not allowed, some wildflower species haven't been seen for decades, and
> low-nesting songbirds can no longer nest.  In some parts of Wisconsin
> and Pennsylvania that have too many deer, native plant communities are being
> decimated.  The only plant species that can survive to reproduce are those
> unpalatable to deer.
>
> I grew up near a state park in southeast Michigan where an anti-hunting
> organization prevented a much-needed deer hunt for years.  By the time a
> sharpshooter was finally hired, there were two hundred deer per square mile,
> fourteen species of wildflowers had completely disappeared from the park,
> many other wildflower species were barely hanging on, and songbirds,
> butterflies, and other animals were seriously suffering.   Aldo Leopold was
> right in saying that a mountain lives "in mortal fear of its deer" because
> of what deer overpopulation can do.  So do other ecosystems.
>
> I don't want that level of deer damage in Iowa.   Some of it is happening
> here already.
>
> I respect and greatly appreciate what you do for conservation.  However,
> if you are saying that we shouldn't kill deer in Iowa, then yes,  you and
> I will have to respectfully agree to disagree on this one.  Best wishes --
>
>
> ch
>
> Cindy Hildebrand
> [log in to unmask]
> Ames, IA  50010
> "A tree is an aerial garden, a botanical migration from the sea, from those
> earliest plants, the seaweeds; it is a purchase on crumbled rock, on ground.
> The human, standing, is only a different upsweep and articulation of cells.
> How treelike we are, how human the tree." (Gretel Ehrlich)
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