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October 8th, 2009 by Dave Mance III Notes from the Editor

What Do Deer Want?

Dwight Garner wrote an entertaining book review in the New York Times recently on Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s new book: The Hidden Lives of Deer. You can read it online at The Books of the Times. 

It’s not fair to judge a book before you’ve read it, so I won’t pass opinion on Thomas’s work. I will say that the review itself contained a number of excerpts that many Northern Woodlands readers will find odd – like the suggestion that female deer will squat and expel an unwanted buck’s semen during rutting season. If word gets out that mammals have this ability, the contraceptive industry as we know it could be destroyed.

If you’re a deer hunter who’s easily angered by cheap shots, you may want to skip the book. Thomas deplores the “doltish” spectacle of deer hunting, writing: We fill the woods with invasive primates camouflaged to look like piles of leaves who sneak around, sprinkling estrus doe urine and manipulating gadgets that sound like antlers clashing.” She likens these gadgets to “something like fishing with dynamite.”

Of course, many hunters see these gadgets not as dynamite but as fools’ gold. As we speak, bow hunters are in pitched debate over whether bottled estrus and chemicals that smell like acorns are completely useless or just mildly useless – the olfactory equivalent of the synthetic “raspberry” flavor in neon-blue bubblegum.

Thomas takes an anthropomorphic low blow at New Hampshire hunters, pointing out that in 2007 they killed 15 percent of the deer in New Hampshire, then writes. “A similar slaughter in human terms would eliminate all the people in two of New Hampshire’s biggest cities, Manchester and Nashua, along with the population of several towns.

Of course, if we looked at these numbers in a vacuum, a back of the envelope calculation suggests that the remaining 76,000 deer in the state had the potential to create a heard of 102,000 deer the following spring – a 10,000 net gain.

But logic has never been a match for sentiment.

As a younger man I would have written Thomas’s book off completely, but I do plan on reading it. I like everything about deer – not just hunting them – so I’ll probably end up liking the book.

If I am pushed to rail about an injustice, it’s in the fact that Thomas’s book has a huge swell of publicity behind it, while so many legitimate naturalists I know – including many who write for this magazine – publish their thoughtful work in relative obscurity.

by Dave Mance III

© by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.

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Discussion *

“
Oct 29, 2009

I first heard of Ms. Thomas and her book when she was a guest on a local radio, call-in program. She continually voiced the fact that she gained her vast knowledge about deer by looking out her window as they ate the food she left for them. She encouraged those who called in to feed deer. This despite the fact that the NH Fish & Game Commission discourages the feeding of deer, to maintain healthy herds.

I am not a hunter but am not against hunting. I like to see deer on my property but the spillover from these deer that congregate to be fed, cause much damage to native plants and shrubs and even trees that I am trying to grow and maintain.

As indicated, there has been undue publicity for this book. Our local Shopper had an item about her speaking at the Harris Center an important Conservation Center in NH. After due consideration they have agreed to have someone present to give the position of the NH Fish & Game Commission to balance information given in her book and presentation.

Walter K. Wornick
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Oct 10, 2009

I totally agree with Carolyn. She articulated the position perfectly.  I am an animal lover, volunteer at a wildlife rehab center and rarely eat meat for health purposes. If I were to eat meat, I would much prefer to eat an animal that has lived a normal life and eaten a natural diet as opposed to eating an animal that has experienced the cruel confinement of feedlots, has eaten an unnatural diet of corn, chemicals and antibiotics all the while living knee deep in its own excrement and then subjected to the cruelest methods of slaughter. A skilled hunter affords the deer a much more humane and respectful death than our meat industry.

Ann Parziale
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Oct 09, 2009

I come from the protected, sanitized suburbs, raised to abhor the killing of anything for any reason (meanwhile virtuously buying my meat in plastic wrap at the supermarket). When we moved to rural Vermont, one of our first social events was the arrival of two deer hunters at our door, politely requesting permission to cross our land to access their regular hunting grounds. The next spring, another one arrived to request same for hunting turkey.

Predictably, I was appalled, but, as a stranger in a strange land, I bowed to their courtesy and returned it. (After all, these were armed men and we live in a remote location. Who knows what could happen if we angered them?)

But these hunters have returned every year for more than a decade to politely repeat their request, in the process becoming friendly acquaintances and teaching us much about the land and animals surrounding us. They have also brought us meat.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have seen jerks in pickup trucks swilling beer, shooting out the windows, and trespassing without qualm. We have found deer carcasses and body parts lying discarded in back corners of other people’s property. I suspect that these folks have formed many non-hunters’ notion of hunting.

While I, personally, find the idea of shooting and dressing an animal revolting, I’ve learned to accommodate it in others. After all, that’s how our forebears survived. And it seems that serious hunters are not only respectful—if not reverential—toward animals and the natural world, they also are honorable toward people and clean up after themselves. They hunt for the challenge of tracking; the intimate experience with the wilderness; and to put food on the table.

Given that the human population has seriously squeezed the animal population into smaller and smaller habitats, overpopulation is definitely a problem “out there” where predators no longer cull the herd. The state agencies responsible for wildlife management carefully monitor and calculate a species’ status and adjust hunting allotments accordingly. In the suburbs, where hunting is impossible, wildlife have become nuisances and disease carriers. Population management is vastly more difficult, and serious accidents on roadways vastly more common.

So I no longer sympathize with townies who romanticize wildlife and blanketly condemn hunting. My ongoing ties with the suburbs and city have shown me over and over that the average resident is clueless about the natural world and cannot speak from direct experience. I wonder if their opinions would change if they were hungry… or if a wild animal took out their pet, or ravaged their garden. Or if they couldn’t call an exterminating service to make squirrels, mice, skunks, and raccoons go away…

Carolyn Haley

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