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November 27, 2002
Letter in Times Herald Record
     The proposed state constitutional amendment to perpetuate the right to hunt, without regard for future conditions or the safety of well over 90 percent of people who have no interest in hunting, would not control the excessive deer population.
     Citizens need to understand that the present overabundant deer
population is the direct result of deliberately regulating hunting to achieve the "maximum sustained yield" of this species for the benefit of the minority of citizens who hunt. This has been achieved by providing for more bucks to be killed so that more does survive the winter to give birth to fawns in the spring. The last thing we need is a constitutional amendment to perpetuate >the problem.
Bina Robinson, Director
CIVITAS: Citizens for Planetary Health Swain

February 2, 2001
Guest column in The Register Herald  Pine Plains NY
HUNTING: THE JOY OF KILLING by Constance Young
      A Jan. 11 letter to the editor called my earlier letter an "emotional tirad".  Pastor William Mayhew took umbrage at what he viewed as my personal attack on the young man in his parish whose picture had appeared in an earlier issue smiling and proudly displaying a big dead buck.  In my letter I did criticize the young man's delight in killing this brave and noble creature, but I bear no personal animosity toward this boy.
      It is proven that when a person takes pride in killing it not only desensitizes that individual to the suffering of another, but it also serves as a bad example for other impressionable and less stable individuals.  There is strong evidence among psychologists and law enforcement agencies that people who are cruel to animals are more likely than other people to be cruel to humans.  In the words of the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, "Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives."
     
      In truth, wildlife conservation as practiced by New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is a myth.   It does not conserve anything but the jobs of the managers and the pastime of the mere 5% of the population who hunt.  Wildlife is "managed" to encourage hunters and hunting and to secure funds for the management agencies.  Moreover, when one species is managed, other species who use the same land are also impacted, frequently negatively.
      Let us follow the money trail to see how this works.  Overhead expenses of state wildlife management agencies are paid for by our state taxes. 
      Taxpayers pay their rent, phone, electric, supplies, postage, legal costs, computers, etc.  Over and above this, wildlife management agencies have to earn their own keep.  Salaries of wildlife managers are paid for out of funds earned through licenses for hunting, trapping and fishing as well as from the state's allotment (based on volume)  from federal excise taxes collected on the sale of firearms, ammunition, bows and arrows.  For every firearm and bullet purchased, money flows into the game agencies in the form of excise taxes.
      This means that in order to pay their salaries, managers must encourage hunting.  Because fewer people now hunt, the DEC is reaching out to promote hunting among younger and younger people and women .  Thus government wildlife managers have turned our wildlife into living targets to collect excise taxes.
      Wildlife managers spend so much of their time increasing the populations of the more popular target species, such as white-tailed deer, so there will be a continuing and increasing supply for hunters.  So that hunters will always have deer to shoot, wildlife managers employ the techniques of habitat manipulation and reproductive biology.
      They manipulate habitat by altering conditions of land and wayter to provide suitable habitat for "game" animals - or species that the laws "protect" (by establishing seasons and bag limits).  Wildlife managers use herbicides to kill vegetation that does not contribute to food supply of game species; but these herbicides also destroy homes and food supplies of other animals such as lizards, insects, rodents, and amphibians. 
      Another habitat management technique is "prescribed burn".  Fires, which can get out of control, are set to cause new growth and provide more browse.  During the mating season (the "rut") occurring mid-October through early January, does become receptive to mature bucks every 30 days, and bucks compete with each other to mate with receptive does.  The fecundity of both does and bucks is determined largely by the amount of browse available.  The more browse, the more fertile the herd.
      Birth rates are also determined by the amount of browsw available to the does.  Given adequate browse, a doe may give birth to twins or triplets, and when browse is sparse, thety usually have a single fawn.  In cases of extreme scarcity, the fetus may be reabsorbed by the doe for her own nutrition.
      Wildlife managers do not dispute the fact that deer are normally born in a 1 to 1 ratio of 50% males to 50% females, which would keep the population low because does would get only half the available food.  When sport hunters take to the field things go awry.
      Hunters ...prefer to shoot bucks because they make impressive trophies to hang on the wall.  Game agencies try to deal with this preference by usually allowing only one buck to be taken with a regular hunting permit.  The natural doe-to-buch ratio has become distorted by hunting, and in most areas of New York it has become 5:1 (five does to one buck). 

December 20, 2000
Woodchuck population control study  from Floyd King "outside" column in Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 11, 1992 which describes a study conducted on two 600-acre grassy fields at the Litter-kenny Army Ordinance Depot near Chambersburg PA. in 1957  Each field had one chuck per acre, i.e. 600 chucks.  For two years, wildlife biologist Robert L. Snyder, removed 500 chucks from one of the fields.  The other field was left alone, but the population remained constant in both fields at 600 chucks after the young were born in the spring.  The birthrate zoomed in the field that lost chucks and declined in the field that was left alone.  A litter normally consists of 4 young, but the number can vary from 2 to 9 depending upon population density.
See article which describes similar response by guppies, foxes and other animals.

December 16, 2000
FWD: from Joe Miele
The problem with letting hunters kill "does" first is that hunters cannot
tell does from immature bucks.

They use the term "antlerless deer" because of this reason. An antlerless deer can be either an adult doe, a young doe, or an immature buck. A hunter has a 33.33% chance of killing a male when he shoots an antlerless deer. This is why the population NEVER decreases.

December 16, 2000
A quote that may be useful to New Yorkers working on bowhunting issues:
Woods & Waters USA December 2000   "Bits & Pieces":
Connecticut -- Despite a hunting season that allows the taking of as
many does as a bow hunter can take, the Nutmeg state continues to have problems with over population. Fairview County allows the taking of as many does as a bowman can take, while the bow hunting season on private lands was extended three weeks in some sections in an effort to roll back numbers.
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