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Letter in The Patriot, December 8, 2001
Hunting is no answer to the deer population

Carol Corrigan's letter "Hunters Come Again" suggests that killing deer makes Allegany County  a better place to live and be. Some residents have a different point of view.

Some of them would like to be cutting wood, but do not feel safe doing so during hunting season.  Parents worry about their children playing outdoors on weekends or afternoons or waiting for the school bus on dark mornings. Farmers have reason to be concerned about their livestock and household animals. Bird watchers, hikers, mountain bikers
and crosscountry skiers deem it prudent to curtail their activities during the overly long 3-week shotgun season for deer and to a lesser extent during the extensive archery and muzzle-loading seasons.

In other words, the sport of the bringers of "pies and donuts from the city" interferes with the normal activities of many of the people who live here.

We are told how safe hunting is compared with other sports because there are fewer casualties, but we are not told that the reason for this is that there are fewer participants. A moment's inattention or distraction
around loaded weapons can have tragic results.

We are also told that hunting is necessary to keep the deer population in check when we can see with our own eyes that current game management policies serve to maintain or increase the number of deer. Statewide, the aim is to kill 80% of the bucks every year. This permits a
larger number of does and fawns to survive the winter and give birth to more fawns in the spring, canceling out the temporary reduction in numbers that occurs during the hunting season. Allowing for a natural 50/50 balance between males and females would limit the population
explosion that occurs in the spring because competition for food weeds out the weaker animals who gradually succumb to lethargy and a non-violent death.

The excessive number of deer results in more crop damage and more property damage from collisions with vehicles to say nothing of human injuries caused by such crashes.

Unfortunately, the weak deer "leaning against trees" that Ms. Corrigan describes, are unlikely to be those sought by hunters who are looking for bucks with the largest racks or animals of either sex with the most flesh. This directly interferes with Nature's process of natural selection which allows the strongest animals survive and reproduce.

Although I have never seen "weak deer leaning against trees" I do not doubt that this happens, particularly early in the spring when the animals' fat reserves have been used up. It doesn't help that the stress of the long hunting seasons contributes to stored fat loss before winter has even begun. What I have seen during a number of winters is deer struggling to survive on three legs after being injured during hunting season. I remember in particular one valiant doe who survived for three years without regaining the use of a disabled foreleg.

Landowners who do not welcome hunters are required to post their land at personal expense and effort when it would be make more sense to post lands where hunting is permitted. The growing number of posted signs is an indication that a large number of property owners don't want people shooting around them. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that hunters will respect these signs. Some do, but others routinely act as if they weren't there.

This situation has arisen because state Bureau of Wildlife is dedicated to providing hunters with the maximum number of animals to kill. Satisfying hunters sells more licenses and brings more income to the department to support the staff.  This is why the department is campaigning to lower the hunting age and lure more children (and women) into killing for fun. This is worrisome in light of the fact that those who
commit violent crimes, like the spate of school massacres in recent years almost invariably got their start by killing defenseless animals.

Hunters are a strong special-interest lobbying group which threatens legislators with loss of votes if they do not support measures favorable to hunting. Most citizens do not write to their legislators at all. If they do write or phone, it is about a diversity of interests whereas hunters concentrate their efforts on issues that concern their sport of killing wild
animals. This situation is unlikely to change unless citizens who object to further expansion of hunting express their concerns to their legislators. It doesn't do much good to write to the Bureau of Wildlife because they are adept at losing or ignoring letters as they did with citizens' complaints about Sunday hunting.

Bina Robinson
Swain NY 14884

Letter in Syracuse Post Standard, September 21, 1992
Agencies Don't Give Our Wildlife a Chance  (Role of NRA)
…."Sportsmen's" license fees and equipment tax don't even begin to pay for the fame wardens to police them.

It's the taxes of the 93 percent of citizens who don't hunt or trap that fund the state and federal agencies that manage the wildlife that by law "belongs" to us all.

However, the mighty arms manufactures are behind the National Rifle Association.  Through their powerful lobby they insure financially that our governors and legislators appoint hunters as administrators of the Fish @ Wildlife Service, state fish and game commissions and departments of natural resource, the US Forest Service and similar federal and state agencies.

Appallingly, these agencies disperse all US wildlife monies into "game management"programs, wherein they do such things a bulldoze sections of forests and plant low-level vegetation to increase the number of graxing animals--mostly deer--for hunters at the expense of other forest creatures; hand-raise birds like pheasants, quail and grouse to become hunter fodder; transport animals from one state to another to build populations for hunting; and stimulate breeding with "buck-only" hunts, which can leave evey buck left alive as many as six does to impregnate.
T
Then they sound their battle cry: "We must shoot them or they will starve."

On the other hand, hunters and trappers have all but annihilated cougars, wolves, martens, bobcats, wolverines and many other species.  Bears are on their way out.  Two thirds of our wild duck population is gone and enough lead shot blankets our wetlands to poison the rest...

The gunners swarm through our national and state parks.  They've turned 259 of our 452 national wildlife sanctuaries into bloody killing fields.

They massacre the animals with semi-automatic rifles, high-powered bows and arrows and the barbaric steel-jawed leg-hold trap, outlawed for its cruelty in 70 countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe, but not--thanks to our wildlife agencies--here.

Not until we insist that our governors and legislators appoint non-hunters as administrators of these agencies will our wildlife have a chance.

Carla Bennett
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals


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