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Sent to The Buffalo News,  December 2002
Dear Editor:
Only "55 injuries" this deer hunting season, a News article reports. It depends on who is counting, I guess. We need a tally of the non-hunter injuries to get a real picture of the damage this recent deer hunting season has caused. As I looked into the eyes of the little bloodied buck lying before me, I felt the numbers of the "injured" this year were much higher.

It was after legal hunting hours that the hunter shot at this little guy as he ran away. The panicked young buck tumbled down a ravine. Morning light revealed the horror of the blood trail. We buried the anger and disgust we felt toward another fellow human being, focusing our energies instead on finding the "injured" animal. Our horror over the blood trail paled in comparison to what we felt as we came upon the small deer that had lain on the freezing ground for over eighteen hours. He looked helplessly up at us, his rear leg shattered and his hindquarters mutilated.

A wildlife rehabilitator tranquilized the frightened deer and wrapped her body around him to keep him warm. That scene will be forever imprinted in my mind and heart. I now have yet another personal experience that fortifies my hatred of hunting.
Every deer-hunting season I patrol private land because so-called "sportsmen," emboldened by their buddies and the difficult-to-enforce hunting laws, feel free to ignore posted signs. I stand there powerless as guns constantly go off before and after legal hunting hours. There are hunters who continually break the laws knowing that rarely will they suffer any consequences.

Those who do suffer are not only the animals left in the woods with limbs dangling, arrows in their necks or jaws shot off, but also the people who care about their needless misery. This isn't, as hunters will claim, a "Bambi-lover's" exaggeration. It's the dreaded reality that a wildlife rehabilitator must face very deer-hunting season as she gets calls from people who have seen the victims.

If so many injured animals are reported in this area where I patrol, how many unfound wounded animals are lying in the woods around this State as I write this letter? How many are suffering the agony of gangrene, peritonitis or starvation from the inability to eat?

"Fifty-five injured?" Count again.

Valerie Will


"SPORT" HUNTING, by Jean & Mike Gonska
Hunting is NOT a sport or a game. The definition of sport includes 3 criteria:
1) All of the players have consented to participate;
2) All of the players are equally equipped;
3) All of the players know the rules.

Any TRUE sport like basketball or tennis would meet these criteria. However, the hunter uses a weapon to stalk, prey upon and injure or kill a defenseless, unsuspecting animal who is in his own home minding his own business. This scenario is no different from a person relaxing in the comfort of his living room and suddenly and unexpectedly being shot at by a stranger from a nearby rooftop.

Hunters use the poor excuse that they are reducing deer populations, when in actuality they are a cause of overpopulation. Deer populations are manipulated by wildlife agencies paid for by hunters for the purpose of producing maximum targets and revenue. Make no mistake, a state's deer herd is a "cash crop" to the state. The deer herd is intentionally cultivated and harvested in the same way a farmer grows his crops. This is done by selectively killing the males, thereby skewing the natural 1:1 sex ratio. In some areas, hunting has caused the sex ratio to rise to as many as 25 females for each male. Deer are polygamous and a male will breed with as many females as are available. With this female-to-male imbalance, more breeding females are left available to increase the herd size. Fish and game reports show that even when female deer are killed, the remaining females compensated and had increased birth rates that not only replaced the ones killed, but increased the overall size of the herd. Despite all of the hunting and killing, deer populations increase, and that is exactly what hunting commissions planned.

When left alone, God and nature manage populations of every species via natural methods such as survival of the fittest. Instead, hunters usually target and kill the fittest, strongest animals, leaving the weak. Deer birth rates are also directly related to their environment and food supply. A herd that is stressed by overpopulation and a short food supply has a very low fecundity rate (successful pregnancy and births). When overall deer herds are reduced and there's plenty of food to go around, the successful pregnancy and birth rates increase and twin and triplet births often occur. Nature figured this out millions of years before hunters in orange coats showed up.

Hunters also use the excuse to kill that weak deer "might" starve, and that's a cruel way to die, so instead, hunters injure thousands of deer and leave them to suffer in agony; and kill others, dismember their bodies and eat their flesh in order to "save" the deer from cruelties. Hunters don't shoot scrawny starving deer anyway, they target big healthy ones.

Hunting actually can cause deer starvation. Deer build fat reserves during the spring, summer and fall that is meant to carry them through the winter. When the hunting season starts, deer are forced to flee and run from place to place which causes them to lose these fat reserves. If game commissions and hunters were really hunting because they were concerned about starving deer, then hunting seasons would be in the late winter and early spring when the food supply is at the lowest. Deer don't starve in the hunting months of November or December.Animals are living creatures that breathe like we do, their hearts beat like ours, they suffer and feel pain, their blood appears identical to ours, and they have the same desire to live that we do. Rather than taking pride in a murdered animal strapped across a car or a decapitated head of a peaceful creature hung on a wall, show your appreciation for nature and animals and shoot only with your camera and preserve the beauty of all living beings. Choose a compassionate lifestyle and leave the animals alone!