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Written by DCist Contributor Lauren Evans
If you, like me, only understand deer in terms of what you learned watching Bambi (impossibly cute, friends with skunks, animated) then you probably have a hard time understanding why their lives are being threatened in Rock Creek Park.
Though they have long been one of the Park’s most charming features, the deer, as of late, have been getting out of control. Devouring the shrubbery, threatening the habitats of other creatures, and, apparently, storming people’s houses: the benign Bambi has turned into a nuisance, and according to some, a threat to safety.
With 82 deer per square mile (versus in 2006, when there were 58 deer per square mile) no one is arguing that their increased population hasn’t become a problem. The disagreement comes with what should be done with them, namely, whether the park should amend its hunting policies to allow professional sharpshooters to kill them.
While the hunting would be left solely to the sharpshooters (public hunting would still be banned), there are a variety of alternatives, which were discussed at a public meeting last night at the Rock Creek Nature Center (WAMU has a solid wrap-up of the meeting). Rather than killing them, the preferred alternative for pro-deer lifers is a combination of sterilization, deer-contraceptive (a thought that elicits some terrible mental images) and plant protection, which would involve erecting barriers to prevent the deer from decimating the greenery.
Of course, the hunting method would also involve other preventative measures, like sterilization. But as John Hadidian, director of the Urban Wildlife Program at the Humane Society of the United States, told the City Paper: “We don’t think that the deer should be blamed for something that is natural to them.”
What do you think? The public can comment on the draft of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and deer management plan until October 2. If you feel strongly about saving the lives of these majestic animals, or just want to watch Park Service try to wrest a condom onto one, now’s you chance.
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Shoot, kill and feed homeless. Everyone wins!!!
I say a bullet is more humane than a hood of a 2009 Civic.
Well said. I don't know why this isn't standard procedure for trimming the population.
And it doesn't have to be done with guns. Trained specialist bow hunters would pose little to no risk.
That's totally the vagina way to kill a deer. I strip down to white briefs, cover myself with brown ang green bodypaint, clinch a bowie knife between my teeth and dive on top of them from the trees.
It's the only way to hunt.
You too?
Coincidentally, that's also how you go MILF-Hunting with Sarah Palin!
I MILF hunt that way too, only I replace the bowie knife with a single rose. "He-llo."
Wait...are you Ted Nugent?
Not Molly!
I am eagerly awaiting Deer Hunter: DC for the XBox 360
Benign bambi? Majestic animals? Gee Sommer, where do you stand? Give me venison steak and give it to me now!
Kindly note that this post was written by Lauren Evans :-)
Damn you Summer! Point to you. I'm going to nevertheless claim you're guilty by association.
You were probably fooled by the part that reads "by Sommer Mathis".
Agreed, the DC food bank has been slumming and yet the deer are wandering farther and farther from the park and becoming less and less afraid of people and passenger cars. Thin. The. Herd.
It's really hard to think about ways of culling them when you run pictures of the adorable widdle fawns, dammit.
They should catch all of the deer, spray paint gang tags on them, and release them into the suburbs. The problem will be solved in days.
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can't they just shoot tranq darts and then, once the deer get all rip van winkle, bring them somewhere into the wilderness and release them? Or hell, at least say they're being brought into the wilderness, and release them onto the doorstep of a venison plant?
Don't kill Bambi's mommy and daddy while they're still in Rock Creek Park!
What "wilderness" are you talking about? Deer populations are too large all over.
Have we forgotten about West Virginia? Or Afghanistan would work. Put lasers on their heads or something. Or like I said, the shrubbery in front of a venison plant would also be good pseudo-wilderness.
The problem with that is that there is no such thing as a wilderness area where deer are not already nuisance, and if they're less fearful of humans, they'll just shot during hunting season anyway, which is fine, because I loves me some venison.
If they really want to stop the deer from breeding, they should consider not giving them any more beer.
As someone who is originally from upstate NY, I can spare you all the suspense and let you know how this ends. Nothing will work. Your resistance is futile. Surrender and embrace your Cervidae overlords.
lol. "sharpshooters?" You mean "hunters" don't you?
Agree on bringing in the bow hunters.
Hunters kill for sport and/or food. Sharpshooters kill for the purpose of extermination...which is pretty fucked-up. I mean sure, we can decide that the deer are a nuisance to shrubbery, etc. But how can we say that deer threaten the habitats of other animals, and then just kill the deer? Bullets aren't part of the optimal habitat for deer either. And if people don't like deer in their yards, they shouldn't live near a park! That'd be like Lou Dobbs moving to Tijuana, and then hiring sharpshooters to shoot all his neighbors.
It's one thing to try to manage deer population for our benefit, but we can do that without just exterminating them. Seriously...tranq dart them, bring them to a hunting preserve, and give them a chance to live out their days naturally while simultaneously providing hunters with a place to at least kill the deer for food or to mount their heads. At least some utility to the hunting is better than killing solely for the sake of killing.
Or give the deer a revolver with one bullet, and let them play Russian Roulette.
Hunters kill for sport and/or food. Sharpshooters kill for the purpose of extermination...which is pretty fucked-up. I mean sure, we can decide that the deer are a nuisance to shrubbery, etc. But how can we say that deer threaten the habitats of other animals, and then just kill the deer? Bullets aren't part of the optimal habitat for deer either. And if people don't like deer in their yards, they shouldn't live near a park! That'd be like Lou Dobbs moving to Tijuana, and then hiring sharpshooters to shoot all his neighbors.
It's one thing to try to manage deer population for our benefit, but we can do that without just exterminating them. Seriously...tranq dart them, bring them to a hunting preserve, and give them a chance to live out their days naturally while simultaneously providing hunters with a place to at least kill the deer for food or to mount their heads. At least some utility to the hunting is better than killing solely for the sake of killing.
Or give the deer a revolver with one bullet, and let them play Russian Roulette.
But how can we say that deer threaten the habitats of other animals, and then just kill the deer?
You kidding me? Deer destroy an ecosystem. Unfortunately, it is because we killed all the wolves.
Several years ago I got a guided tour of a conservation project. The guide (the state leader of the org) told the group that they "manage" the deer population. Later, out of earshot from the others he said "I'd like to shoot every one of them".
Are you kidding?? Your idea is laughable. Moving deer to a preserve? With what money? In case you didn’t notice our country is a little broke right now - I think they call it a recession. Furthermore, having too many deer around is detrimental to our ecosystem. And if all the deer eat up most grass then what will the little baby bunnies do?!?!?! Oh noes! Not to mention it's also kind of dangerous when motorists start hitting them (had a family friend killed when a deer came through his windshield). This is real life, time for you to leave the Fanciful Unicorn Wizards & Rainbow World.
sterilization doesn't work. It was tried a lot in the 90s.
I works on me.
Hey, I slayed 15 doves yesterday so I'm totally okay with taking out the cute ones. Let me just run out and buy some deer slugs.
Okay, so the next story talks about the unidentified dead jogger being called "Jane Doe"
(must...resist....cheap joke....)
I believe they were best described by a gardening friend of mine as "rats on stilts".
They should just catch some of the wolves they're hunting out in Idaho and ship them back to hunt the deer. People will quit bitching about bow hunters real quick.
I'm not a fan of just thinning the herd ie killing and disposing of (read: wasting) the bodies. However I would be strongly in favor of allowing public hunting (with all the requisite rules, fees, registrations etc).
City folk don't seem to understand what a nuisance your "Bambi" is and that overpopulation isn't just bad for us, but it's terrible on the deer. The humane thing to do is thin the herd, but it's best if we can put the kill to use. Venison roast, venison chops, venison stew, venison jerky... sounds like a good winter to me.
[Drags fingernails across blackboard]
I'll take care of your deer problem. One one condition. I get to have sex with the deer before I kill 'em.
...and I get to have sex with them AFTER you kill them.
Mmmmm, venison....
Hunters kill for sport and/or food. Sharpshooters kill for the purpose of extermination...which is pretty fucked-up. I mean sure, we can decide that the deer are a nuisance to shrubbery, etc. But how can we say that deer threaten the habitats of other animals, and then just kill the deer? Bullets aren't part of the optimal habitat for deer either. And if people don't like deer in their yards, they shouldn't live near a park! That'd be like Lou Dobbs moving to Tijuana, and then hiring sharpshooters to shoot all his neighbors.
It's one thing to try to manage deer population for our benefit, but we can do that without just exterminating them. Seriously...tranq dart them, bring them to a hunting preserve, and give them a chance to live out their days naturally while simultaneously providing hunters with a place to at least kill the deer for food or to mount their heads. At least some utility to the hunting is better than killing solely for the sake of killing.
Or give the deer a revolver with one bullet, and let them play Russian Roulette.
The deer are a major ecological problem, though obviously not as big as habitat fragmentation and destruction and other environmentally nasty stuff. Deer eat endangered plants and destroy the habitat, in particular, for birds, particularly ground-dwelling birds whose numbers have declined precipitously. What we really need are some predators - wolves and cougars would do just fine and they're native though extirpated. In lieu of that, I vote for just killing them in the quickest, cheapest, most humane way possible which probably means hiring a sharpshooter to stick a piece of lead in their foreheads.
Park Service, here is my proposition. Totally serious. I will shoot the deer (shotgun, limited range), if you clean it, butcher it and give the me the venison.
They should catch some of those wolves they're hunting in Idaho and ship them in to hunt the deer. I think people would stop bitching about bow hunters in a hurry.
Hey, I am all for that. The problem is that as soon as the wolf eats someone's purebred German Shcmakenzee in Ward 3, there will be screaming.
According to maryland DNR, there are more deer today than in colonial times.
so if this does happen, seriously, what happens to the bodies?
that food should go somewhere.
this could be win/win for ( uh.. the humans in..) DC.
dc jail, shelters, SOME, schools, deer jerky for soldiers....
how does it work elsewhere?
My dad used to give some to the nuns who ran a soup kitchen. They were already dressed-out and processed of course. He hunted bow, rifle, and muzzle loader in 2 states. When I was growing up, we never had beef, and to this day I hardly ever buy it or cook it because I never really learned what the good cuts are. A lot of people say they don't like the taste of venison, but thats because its tricky to cook, and easy to screw up.
Just let the bees take care of them. Natural selection.
i hear Muhammad and Malvo are kinda bored nowadays. are there any car trunks in Rock Creek Park that they can use for a few weeks? deer-be-gone.
We encroach on their habitat - a huge new housing development off of Foxhall Road, for example - which fragments their population. They don't have the migration routes to roam through the parks freely thus their numbers will increase in those segregated pockets. So to solve the problem that we caused, we blow away a few hundred more. After an agressive culling season, the four surviving deer will end up in someone's backyard and POP!! POP!! POP!! POP!! Guess what? No. More. Deers.
We need a pack or two of wolves in Rock Creek to naturally bring down the population.
As an added bonus, they'd also cull superfluous overly-fluffy dogs and small children.