Nature Wars II - Oh Deer!

Deer damage - a defoliated
hosta plant in my yard

Jim Sterba in his book Nature Wars challenges the reader to think about how one relates to nature now that nature has returned. The eastern deciduous forest has rebounded and with it many species which were once threatened, the white tail deer among them. Those darn pesky deer are now so numerous that they cause huge costs to the insurance industry due to car strikes. They do quite a bit of damage to landscaped yards (mine included) and crops. But without man taking part of the ecosystem as the top predator we no longer work to keep the population in check.

My father grew up during World War II when people planted Victory Gardens for their sustenance. My grandparents bought a piece of land which at one time seemed to be in the middle of no where but today is smack dab in the middle of sprawl as Sterba calls it. But back then going to the market wasn't as easy as it is today. My grandmother preserved the vegetables that they raised along with meat from the chickens they kept, while the eggs were sold. It would be years before they'd give up that hard work as groceries became easier to obtain.

Dad learned to hunt and fish as a kid going out with his father, grandfather, or uncles to bag deer, duck, frogs, and trout. He continued his hunting and fishing into his adulthood. He taught my sister and I how to fish taking us out when he could. He even got himself a lobstering license and some pots. I remember bobbing about in a small boat near the breakwater while my father stood up in the boat and hauled his pots up from the ocean floor. It was just business as usual.

I saw Bambi as a kid and was traumatized by his mother's loss but I saw it for what it was. Hunting is one thing and the murder of a parent is another, and I think many people get the two confused. Man has always been a part of keeping other animal populations in check. Not until the mid-20th century did we take on large animal farming and decided that we would eat only chicken, beef, and pork. No wonder there are plenty of geese, turkeys, and deer available fore us to eat today and which we don't. We think of them as nuisances, our grandparents would have seen dinner. For me it was natural that people hunted, my father hunted, we had a deer head on the family room wall. Sterba's book challenges us to realize that more and more we are separated from nature and we really need to reflect on how that changes the way nature is viewed and managed. And yes we do need to take a role in managing the ecosystem for our benefit and for the health of the other organisms in it.