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It's funny, I just had a conversation with a friend (her husband hunts) about this. I've been a vegetarian for 20+ years and find myself way less offended by her husband hunting deer so they can stockpile meat for the winter than by what goes on in factory farms in this country.

I'm all for hunting deer. Intentionally shooting them for meat is better than unintentionally hitting them with cars and driving by their dead carcus for weeks.

Here in southeastern Michigan which is thickly developed and 90% privately owned over 400,000 deer do the most serious ecological damage to our communities, and that is completely eliminating the understory of all the woods and forests in southern Michigan. We have about 70 years to find a solution which is the timing for forest succession around here.My prediction is we will have no woods or forests at all in southern Michigan in 50 years. Hard to imagine we are letting such a catastrophe happen.

You are so, so right!!
I garden, my husband hunts. It's a great balance.
Live in over-deer populated Fairfield County. The deer
are ruining our eco-system and are overfed on a diet rich
with expensive perennials purchased at area nurseries.
And, what most people totally fail to acknowledge, is that the
average hunter is a conservationist. They, by in large , are lovers
of the natural world and care to sustain and protect the outdoors...we need more people to understand this! Cheers for your rant and happy hunting, and, my hub only shoots bow and arrow. Let us know if you need a visit!

I am surrounded by hunters and until they come on the property and start shooting near the house I am cool with that. The offenders are the hunters with the hound dogs. Dogs don't recognize boundaries and when what ever is stuck up a tree is good enough, neither do hunters.

This predatory pressure has a marked influence on the behavior of the critters up here. The deer do not eat any of the hundreds of hosta and even being seen in the vegetable garden by myself and neighbors there has never been nary a nibble. The ample natural food supply helps, but the deer just don't come close to humans or their habitats without extreme caution and do not recognize our shrubberies as food.

There are regular sightings of bear in Asheville, recently in downtown on Patton Avenue. I have never seen any hint of a bear up here and I know they are here.

But we also have plenty of other larger predators left. There are coyotes that do come close, but stay hidden, fox and bobcats.

All this hunting of deer combines to make them not the least bit of a nuisance.

I live in a rural area where hunting is a popular sport, and I am very glad of it. If one is going to eat meat, and I do, I don't see the difference between killing a cow and a deer, except the deer is not a sure thing. I agree that factory farms are a bigger moral problem than deer hunting. I also know that deer hunters are usually conservationists and I know that I need hunters to make some attempt at keeping the large deer herds under control. Hooray for hunters.

I am also a vegetarian of 30 years, and I am a strong supporter of hunting. However, our land is now posted after someone stopped a truck right in front of our house, jumped out and fired a RIFLE right towards our neighbors house! Every year around here someone gets shot while sitting in their living room watching football.
While most hunters are responsible, there are too many who don't respect how far their firearms reach, and pay no attention to what is around them other than the animal they see.

Timing of this posting is amazing. I just finished a book by Dan O'Brian, "Buffalo for the Broken Heart" about the relative effects of cattle and buffalo on plains ecosystems. I'd be more enthusiastic about deer meat were it not for the BSE issue. Wild buffalo meat (not produced via the feedlot model) is an interesting alternative.

Well, you don't need to learn to use a gun, Michele: I have given permission to bow hunters a couple of times now to use our property. Bow (whether the regular bow/arrow thing or a crossbow) is both silent and has its own season in our state. It seems a much saner method, frankly, than baiting a path and then shooting the poor buggers from a tree. But whatever. Control does seem to be key. Michigan is the #3 state for deer:car accidents and frankly that is one lousy way to control the things!

We have a decent hunting program in our state but miscalculations have been made.
Bucks were hunted for years with a limited doe season. What did this do? Why it created more deer. A buck can service quite a lot of does. This year our wildlife program is limiting the buck season and extending the doe season. Hopefully this will help the situation. I am more comfortable with a deer hunted and used as meat than hunter for trophy antlers.

I think Bonnie means the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) issue, not the BSE issue. CWD is a transmissibel spongiform encephalopathy of cervids (deer and elk) but it is not the same disease as BSE. Hunters are actually an important part of CWD surveillance.

So far, there's no link between CWD and human health, though basic precautions are recommended. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has a useful web page on CWD and hunting: http://wildlife.state.co.us/hunting/biggame/cwd/

I think we absolutely should be hunting, for all the reasons Michele gave and for one more: The current problem with whitetail deer overpopulation in the eastern US is the result of human interference in the environment. We removed the wolves and other predators that kept the deer in check. Hunting is the simplest way to start restoring that balance.

You don't need to be the hunter, just the venison eater. Deer hunters usually have plenty of extra meat at the end of the season (often donated to charity). Befriend a hunter and your freezer will be full. I offer to help with the butchering since actually pulling the trigger is just to hard unless the deer was attacking me and I needed to defend myself.

Somewhere on the internet is a website from a woman hunter who likes to do things the old fashion way - handmade weapons & tools, tans the hides, etc. On her website I found the best venison recipe ever: cube the meat into one inch pieces, roll in flour and finely chopped onions, brown in a skillet with your choice of oil then place in slow cooker and cover with water, sprinkle with salt and pepper and let cook all afternoon. Tastes like the best beef stew ever.

I am also a vegetable gardener, a vegetarian, and a advocate of deer hunting. Maybe I shouldn't say "advocate", but I would much rather have people eat venison than factory farmed and processed meat. I think the way we breed, farm, butcher and process hogs, chickens, cows, etc, beyond disgusting and inhumane. At least the white tails have a decent life, running around and eating day lilies.

The deer population is out of control. As others have said, I would rather people hunt with guns as opposed to hitting them with cars. I don't like bow hunting because I think there is a higher chance of injuring, but not killing, the deer. Chasing deer with dogs is horrible. I don't like the idea of baiting them either. I want their deaths to be as fast as possible.

I guess one of the reasons I prefer hunting deer to eating farmed beef is that, generally, there is that connection between the hunter and the prey. The man looks at the deer, he sees its grace and beauty. He sees its brown eyes. He makes a calculated decision to take its life.

When you buy meat at Wal-Mart, there's no connection. There's no feeling. I think that's one of the reasons why Americans eat so much meat and don't care about animals.

venison = yummy

YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!! Oh, sorry for shouting. Deer are a problem in my urban neighborhood for all the reasons cited above. Houses built on top of the ancient summer range, houses and roads blocking the deer's former winter migration route and range. No predators. Result: bambi in our gardens. And don't get me started on the idiot neighbors who FEED the deer.

Years ago, I tried to convince my next-door neighbor, an avid bow hunter, to come out after dark and shoot some of the marauders. I told him he could keep anything he shot from my yard & I would even help him butcher it. He just laughed. Apparently he thought I was kidding.

Related story. For years, our favorite downtown riverside park has been made nearly unuseable by the excrement of nonmigrating migratory waterfowl, primarily Canada Geese. These geese come and stay because people feed them!!!!!! ack! despite numerous signs posted around the park, and because they are protected by federal law. The parks department and city have tried every politically correct option to get rid of them -- birth control, hazing with dogs, capture & removal (the buggers fly right back), oiling of eggs in nests ...... all to no avail. For years I have said, to no one in particular, hey, they ought to shoot them and use them to feed people at the homeless shelter.

Anyway, in utter desperation, after spending countless tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on completely ineffective methods of control, permission was finally given this year for the parks department to collect a whole lot of geese (by netting), 'euthanize' them, and then -- yes yes yes -- they donated the carcasses to the local food kitchen! Am I brilliant or what.

Of course there was an outcry. A large group of people immediately gathered in the park and had a MEMORIAL SERVICE for the dead geese. Oh please.

I suspect that experiment in natural resource management will not be repeated, and for the same reason, we won't see city-certified hunters out in our streets, patrolling for the dread bambi.

Therefore I will continue to bang pots when I see the darlings munching my flowers, and grow my edibles in the fenced-in back garden.

I think GRant has raised this subject -- killing deer -- in the past and I probably said this at the time: See that McDonald's up the street? See all those deer wandering about? It would be SO sustainable to eat deerburgers instead of "ham"burgers.

One comment about bow-hunting. The problem with bow hunting is that one arrow is unlikely to kill a deer. Even two arrows. It's more often going to wound a deer, and he or she will take off with arrow intact to die (possibly) a slow death while trudging through the woods. Unfortunately, guns are the best bet for humanely killing a deer.

I'm not a hunter, have never shot a gun. Always assumed I couldn't kill an animal with any weapon. But then I had kids. And I learned quickly that, oh yes, I could kill anything that tried to harm my kids. Bare hands, gun, pitchfork, whatever it took. So I no longer speak ill of hunters because I don't know their motivation.

I heartily agree as well. Most hunters are responsible, however if you don't know the person it is a little disconcerting to be baking muffins in your kitchen, watching the fox run across YOUR field, and BAM, a shot rings out. I did object to that, again, getting rid of the predators that I needed to keep the damn bunnies in check. Hunt the deer, and the bunnies, but do it responsibly. We have a huge problem with the deer eating all the understory in the forests.

My girls and I were discussing something similar last night. We saw a production of 101 Dalmations, so we were talking about killing animals for their fur, my oldest daughter said "well that's wrong and illegal". I said "you kill animals for meat", okay, I am not a fur wearing person, but let's face it all those leather sofas come from somewhere too.

I'm not a hunter, but have no issue with those who are. However, the overpopulation of deer in urban and suburban areas is far too extreme to be solved by hunting. Whenever I see the numbers of deer that are killed by bow hunting clubs brought in to control deer in a neighborhood or park the results are laughable, a handful out of hundreds per square mile. The obvious conclusion is that hunting is not a reasonable solution to the deer overpopulation in areas densely populated by people, though apparently many people seem to think that it is.

Discussion about hunting deer distracts from reaching a real solution. Hunting is a sport, and perhaps for a few a source of food, but there is no possibility that hunting will be an effective control in populated areas. Discussion and influence should be exerted on behalf of real solutions.

I was so happy to read this article, and so encouraged by the comments! Usually an article like this gets a lot of folks upset. Maybe they still are but just haven't posted, yet.

It's a great conversation to have - and to continue to have. If any of us consider ourselves to be environmentalists, we have some work to do to embrace hunters. I get so frustrated when I'm around hunters who talk about environmentalists being against what they do, etc. I don't know if it's Fox News or PETA or what spreading that tired cliche around, but I think more environmentalists are coming around to the "hunting's OK" attitude. We just need to be more vocal about it.

A professor at UW-Madison, Don Waller, has done work to measure the effect of deer browsing on native flora, if anyone wants to see some basic research on the matter.

Thank you, Michelle for a thought-provoking post. I'll be quoting you on this: "(Growing food) feels less like something I do and more like something that happens in collaboration with my piece of earth."

I so agree, and not just for our gardens. The deer overpopulation has resulted in habitat degradation in the forest preserves of the Chicago area. Too many deer on not enough land to support them causes the deer to eat everything, result in the loss of wildflower species and plants that prevent erosion. Unfortunately, hunting is not practical in an urban area. Something must be done, however.

Not to steer readers away from GR, but ya'll might want to check out Hank Shaw's blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. Very interesting & pretty much in line with the ideas many people here are expressing.

Ohio's deer population went from almost extinct in 1913 or there abouts to more than we can support. One of the reasons is because our strip mining reclamation laws create the perfect deer cafeteria.

I garden, I scavenge, I hunt. Isn't it amazing how much food is out there, or how much potential the smallest bit of land has to start making food?
And Laura, THANK YOU for that link! How did I not know about site until now?

Laura, I have to add my thanks, too, for that amazing link.

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