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
"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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