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Letter in Syracuse Post-Standard,  December 8, 2001
Hunting is no answer to deer overpopulation
Re: "Too many deer, not enough hunters" by J. Michael Kelly, Nov. 22:
Is an increase in hunting necessary to manage the deer population in Central New York?  Not at all.  Overhunting has caused deer to overpopulate the State in the first place, and only a reduction in hunting can solve the problem.

Dozens of state game management and university studies show that deer instinctively regulate their pregnancy rates based on the forest food supply.  When competition for food is normal, a mature doe may bring one fawn into the world.  But if the does are well fed--as when hunters drastically reduce the population--the surviving females will produce many more deer than the forest can feed.  They will have twin fawns, or will become mothers at age one instead of the normal age of two, which results in an overpopulation problem the following year.

This is a well know phenomenon in the Department of Environmental Conservation and hunting circles.  "In fact," explained New Mexico Fish and Game Director Wayne Evans, "hunting maximizes fawn production...More animals are produced for the gun."...And for our gardens and roadways.

The best solution to the problem calls for a reduction in deer hunting in New York State.  By issuing half the number of licenses next year, we woud reduce the herd to its self-sustaining forest level and end the dangerous cucle of deer overpopulation in Central New York once and for all.

Rob English
Syracuse, New York 

Letter in Niagara Falls Gazette March 13, 2001
It's wrong for adult hunters to recruit 13-year-olds to the sport
In a Niagara Gazette column last month, Joe Ognibene attempts to defend the indefensible-arming 14-year-olds and recruiting them into the ranks of those who cause torment and death to animals, for recreation.

I am a long-time family social worker, concerned about the rampant violence and cruelty in society, which is nowhere better illustrated than by animal abusers. Law enforcement and mental health professionals are well aware of the connection between animal abuse and human abuse. Most violent criminals and virtually all serial killers tortured and abused animals as children.

As fewer people choose to hunt, with each passing generation, the tiny
percentage who still hunt (perhaps 4 percent of the population) mount
frantic campaigns to encourage children and women to become animal killers.

The adult hunters, who Ognibene expects to teach safety to child hunters, accidentally kill each other, along with people unfortunate to be anywhere near them (even in their own homes, yards, or cars), and companion animals with abandon, as their own statistics demonstrate.

Add children to the mix and the human death toll will skyrocket, as will
the already high numbers of wild animals left to die slowly from their
injuries.

Susan Gordon
North Plainfield, NJ

February 4, 2001
An AP report of February 2, demonstrates that the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation does not have a  problem in mustering enough hunters to kill deer despite claims to the contrary.  This in turn
demonstrates that their concern is probably more with the revenue obtained from selling hunting licenses than with getting enough hunters to kill the deer herd deliberately maintained by DEC  game management. policy.  Here is the report as amended in caps by Livi French:

Albany - The number of deer TAKEN by hunters in New York state rose to a record in 2000, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials said yesterday.

Wildlife experts at the department said hunters TOOK approximately 295,000 deer in the 2000 season, up from 256,000 in 1999.

"Favorable weather and tracking conditions this past fall, a growing deer herd and an increase in the number of Deer Management Permits issued led to an extremely productive deer harvest," said Gerald Barnhart, the D.E.C.'s director of fish, wildlife and marine resources.

The highest buck and deer TAKE in the southern zone was in Steuben County, followed by Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua Counties. In the northern zone, where the deer population has expanded rapidly, the TAKE was highest in St. Lawrence County, followed by Jefferson and Lewis Counties.

[The EMPHASIS in the above article is mine. Here follows my letter just
mailed to the editor. --LF]    letters@nytimes.com

Re. "State Agency Reports Record Deer Season," February 2, Metro section

It's one thing for The Times to quote its sources verbatim, even though what hunters and their friends in Albany refer to as "tracking," others would call stalking, and what hunters call "a productive...harvest," others call a bloody massacre.

But it's unacceptable for The Times to echo, in its editorial content, the pseudo-sporting language of the hunting establishment when it refers, repeatedly, to deer being "taken" by hunters, and to the "take" being highest in this or that county.

Noun, verb, whatever the part of speech, the operative word here is"kill."

Livi French, Director, The Caring Corps, Inc., New York NY

Response to Ted Williams' Audubon article
Letters to the Editor

Let me see now. In his editorial "Mismanaging Deer, Pennsylvania Style"
(Tuesday, May 28, 2002) Ted Williams, editor-at-large of the Audubon
magazine, says there are "too many" deer in Pennsylvania and suggests that we
kill more females; Audubon is also ready to kill Tundra swans if there are
"too many." Pennsylvania hunters and others would like to kill geese because
there are "too many" and they "do nothing but eat and poop." In the West,
there are "too many" prairie dogs, so they are killed by the thousands
despite the fact that biologists tell us they are a cornerstone species and
the main food of the black footed ferret which we have spend millions to try
to save from extinction. In Yellowstone and surroundings the Department of
Livestock is harassing and killing buffalo, the only truly wild herd
remaining in the United States, because they might spread disease although
there is no authenticated case in which the buffalo have, in fact, spread
disease and the vast majority of those killed are not tested for disease.

One might think that these animals that eat and poop are taking over the
world while in truth, it is those animals with the big brains that they don't
use, who also eat poop, but in addition kill and kill, who have taken over
the world. Welcome to the killing fields of the United States of America.

P. Cohn, Ph.D.

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