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The Hidden Factor In The Deer Debate

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The Hidden Factor In The

Deer Debate

To the Editor:

“Sometimes I think we live in a bizarre world where advocates for life are considered radical and proponents of death are considered normal.” (Paul Watson — resigned board member, Sierra Club.)

State agencies say there are no starving deer in Connecticut and that the count is stable. None of the experts or wildlife officials have been willing to equate the culling of deer in our local towns with any reduction of Lyme disease. Yet the cry for deer slaughter goes on.

I wonder if there might be a hidden factor at work here in this passionate debate?

By now, many have read the scientific studies which show that the white-footed mouse and many birds are the great reservoir where the black-legged tick (Ixodes-scapularis) picks up the Lyme disease spirochete. The deer are immune. They do not become infected and are only one of many field and woodland creatures that the ticks can ride on.

If we had every deer and its young destroyed there would still be numerous hosts to carry these ticks about. That is why Lyme disease has not abated in towns that cull deer.

We are not talking about hunting here, but rather, systematic and continuous killing by self-appointed “deer management” people who bait and destroy deer by the hundreds. They are hired killers. They claim that they wish only to do us a great service. They also wish to have more public and private land made available to them and to the hunters.

We are told we have an “overpopulation” of deer. Who tells us this? I understand that one of the sources for these deer population estimates (relied upon by the state agencies) are the hunters!

Which brings us that oh-so-softly mentioned factor — money. All wildlife preserves and agencies must compete for money. State agencies rely on licensing fees from hunting interests, as well as on private donations and special bequests from donors’ estates. There never seems to be enough. So now we hear murmurs of a “marketing plan.”

According to a News-Times article (November 7, 2009, “The Damage Deer Do”), Steve Patton, Director of Devil’s Den, a nature preserve in Redding-Weston, is quoted saying :“I’d ask whether we should hire professionals and allow a market-based proposal to sell venison after the regular deer hunting season ends.” He is not the only person in “deer-management” circles advocating that our wildlife are to be treated as another commodity.

If the Lyme disease hysteria doesn’t scare people sufficiently and the “overpopulation” argument fails, why, we can always appeal to natural greed.

Paula Hopper

Boggs Hill Road, Newtown                                           March 17, 2010

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