Fire Island Deer in Contraceptive Program

The National Parks Service seems to be marching closer towards killing off an enormous portion of Fire Island white-tailed deer. Deer lovers on the barrier island off New York have feared since 2012 when the federal agency announced it was coming up with a plan to “manage” the deer population that there was only one way this was going to go.

The Parks Service announced on December 31–talk about a late night news dump–that despite years of deliberation and 400 pages of public comment, they are planning to kill off one-third to two-thirds of the deer population. And then come back and do it again. And specifically target deer that approach humans, which seems especially cruel. It’s also a way to interfere with the natural evolution of a species in an world that is dominated by one species, humans.

It didn’t need to happen at all. Much of the comments are angry at the idea the Parks Service is going to kill wildlife in the name of protecting the grounds of an historical estate and to try to recreate an exact moment in the natural history of the island–after humans had killed off the large predators, but before deer and other prey species thrived in their absence. In the parks service view, a natural environment and balance that require constant human intervention and shooting is preferable to whatever happens naturally.

There’s a last ditch change.org petition to try to stop killing the deer, though that seems hopeless. The Parks Service decided a long time ago they wanted to shoot the deer on Fire Island and that’s what they’re going to start doing.

Fire Island Deer in Contraceptive Program

The National Parks Service has come up with a surprisingly illogical new plan for the deer of Fire Island: they want to kill most of them off with sharpshooters, hunters and by capturing and “euthanizing” them. The population of deer has been falling for years, but somehow the Parks Service and New York State have concocted a goal to “reduce negative deer-human interactions” and protect natural and cultural resources.

Locals think it’s all just a political plan to appease hunters that has nothing to do with serving the people of  Fire Island. Most people who live there or visit love their deer visitors. When I’ve visited people get excited to see them in the dunes and eating berries from bushes–despite their habit of eating landscaping. Unless the deer charged into bars wearing anti-gay slogans and stealing the booze, I’d say the culture of Fire Island is pretty much secure. The public has until October 10 to comment on the bizarre plan.

What’s particularly odd about the proposal is that even chronology of the deer saga on the island they’ve had two programs that worked before–telling people not to feed them and Humane Society of the United States’ PZP birth control program.  By the National Parks’ Service’s own account both worked great. Fire Island is where the Humane Society first tested and proved its contraceptive program. The academic study published from the experiment showed that within four years the calving rate fell by 80%. The population density went up slightly, then fell dramatically. Overall the estimates of the deer population went from 500 to 700 at the peak down to about 300-500 now. 

The plan says that deer are hurting native plants and they in particular jeopardize the maritime holly forest of the Sunken Forest, one of the most underwhelming natural wonders of the world, which consists mainly of trees short enough to live between dunes. The Parks Service cites the New York Natural Heritage Program. But even that says the bigger threats are the erosion of the whole island and people walking off the boardwalks. The plant is question is American holly (Ilex opaca)

Gates’ point, however, is that it’s really mosquitoes, which he says kill 725,000 people a year versus just 475,000 humans killed by humans. It’s a fun chart that gets people to think about malaria and realize that sharks and wolves aren’t so bad. But the numbers are pretty off, making some already downtrodden animals (like wolves and sharks) look worse than they are. And it makes humans, which are really the worst, look better.

If you just take the way mosquitoes kill–as a disease vector–humans kill 3.2 million through respiratory infections, 1.9 million from diarrhea and 1.6 million a year through AIDS–for a total of 6.7 million just from the top contagious diseases. Car accidents add 1.3 million and I’m not sure how to count all the other drowning, hunting and other kinds of accidents. And if you add in smoking related illnesses, which the WHO says is responsible for one in 10 adult deaths globally, you add roughly another 4 million. You might say that’s controversial, so, to make up for it, I’m not going to count diabetes.

For the human-caused human deaths, Gates might have been using the global homicide rate, which was 468,000 in 2011, according to  this UN report, plus deaths from war, which average about 55,000 per year. But, all tolled, I’d say humans kill about 12 million humans a year.

We’re way worse than mosquitoes. We’re still #1!

Some minor animal quibbles:

Sharks: Gates: 10 Reality: 4.2 according to Oceana

Wolf: Gates: 10   Reality: 2.3, according to a Wikipedia list (yeah, I know, not exactly the New York Times) of wolf attacks .

To Americans this is maybe the most controversial animal on the list, what with ranchers spreading rumors of wolves marauding our western plains and the first documented wolf-caused human deaths. But the number is really low. And now wolf haters are going to be using this official-looking chart for years.

Hippo: Gates 500. Reality: nobody knows, but that’s probably way too high

Lacking an international protection group, a western phobia or even a Wikipedia page, hippo attacks are really hard to track. Huffpo believes it’s an even more implausible 3,000. The problem is that if you’re hippo territory you’re probably not in internet news gathering territory. Or even accurate government mortality territory. The IUCN says there are maybe 125,000 to 148,000 hippos in Africa, decreasing by about 1% a year. If the 3,000 were true it would mean that over the course of a decade hippos would kill 30,000 people, so 25% of hippos on average killed somebody. (Unless the whole trend is the work of a few hippo serial killers, a theory the delightful Animal Review has toyed with.) And since hippos have a lifespan of 40-50 years, statistically every single one could have killed a person.

And then there are all the animals that Gates totally let off. Cows trample 100 American farmers to death a year. Deer kill cause about 200 American fatal car crashes. We’re probably talking in the hundreds, maybe thousands, worldwide.

So if you did stand up and say “humans! humans!” you were right.

Bill Gates’ chart of world’s deadliest animals, which defames a lot of species.

Sharks: 4.2 according to Oceana.http://oceana.org/en/our-work/protect-marine-wildlife/sharks/learn-act/shark-attack-statistics

simitar oryx hunting

Laura Logan thanked hunters on 60 Minutes for saving endangered species by paying thousands of dollars to shoot them on canned hunts in Texas.* She gulped down the game ranchers’ argument that they are the only ones keeping animals like the scimitar-horned oryx, which is listed by the IUCN Red List as extinct in the wild, from disappearing from the planet.

That will surely come as a surprise to the other 199 institutions around the world that have been carefully breeding Oryx dammah since the 1960s.

Logan walks five miles to make critics of canned hunts look insane. But even then she doesn’t deliver. She lays a trap for Priscilla Feral of Friends of Animals, asking if it would be better if they were extinct than hunted. Feral doesn’t fall for it.

Logan; So, if the animals exist only to be hunted…

Feral: Right…

Logan: …you would rather they not exist at all?

Feral: Not in Texas, no.

She sidesteps the obvious ploy and says she’d just rather not see them in Texas. Not insane. If I said I’d rather not have the scimitar-horned oryx in my living room, does that mean I’m getting in the way of real conservation? No. Having a scimitar-horned oryx on my sofa or on a hunting ranch in Texas is completely irrelevant to its conservation. If hunting the oryx were really the only way for the species to survive, of course I’d support it. But it has nothing to do with species survival.

Logan lets the hunters conflate surviving and living in Texas. On the show and in online comments, they practically shout Gotcha! I just bagged a crazy animal person!

Logan lets hunters claim that they have the numbers on their side. They say the number or oryx will be cut in half –in Texas–by a new law that makes them illegal to hunt.

But just the raw numbers of oryx aren’t as important as the number in the international studbook. Texas ranchers thousands of oryx (how many nobody says). Only 110 are part of the international effort to save the species. They make up less than 10% of the studbook, a directory of breeding animals biologists keep to save the species. (Typically, individuals aren’t listed if they were too much like ones already in there or genetics are unknown.) The Texas population is so insignificant that the IUCN barely mentions them in its species assessment. There’s another 4,000 in private hands in the United Arab Emirates, where the Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort (AWPR) is actually working with biologists, hosting conferences to figure out how to save the species. This giant family zoo in the desert, founded by Sheikh Zayed, who founded the country, is the real unsung hero in oryx conservation.

It’s amazing to see CBS News just take up the hunting ranches’ fight. In Australia, where hunters are doing the same thing, reporters are at least asking questions about ethical hunting. “For me, to see these beautiful animals shot by these madmen is a tragedy. They are extinct in the wild. It’s like shooting a Sumatran tiger or a white rhino. It’s disgusting,” said tycoon Warren Anderson, who bred them.

Logan doesn’t even bother to question the canned hunting ranch assertion that they employ 14,000 people in Texas or the bizarre claim that “Texas has more exotic wildlife than any other place on earth.” First off, that’s not something to be proud of. Second, it’s unprovable and vague propaganda. Are we talking individual animals? Species? The hunted animals are on fenced, ranches, not running wild. So then do farm animals count, too? Or pets? If we’re talking individual animals, then the number or starlings and sparrows alone in New York or many states would eclipse Texas’ antelope numbers.

Here are some other numbers Logan doesn’t bother to bring up. Wildlife watchers spend more more than hunters. Even in Texas. According to the last Fish and Wildlife Survey, animal tourists spent $2.9 billion wildlife watchers (table 69) compared to just $2.2 billion by hunters (table 59).

Again, animal lovers are happy to talk about the real numbers.

	Where to SEE BUFFALO, Bison and Wisent
	Where to SEE DEER (and anteloope and reindeer)

* Think I’m exaggerating? Logan actually said: “How did thousands of Texas ranches become home to the largest population of exotic animals on earth? It’s thanks to trophy hunters like Paul, who come here in the thousands to hunt these animals every year, sold on the idea of an African hunting experience in Texas.”

There’s some overlap between the 1% of households by wealth and those who hunt.  Only 2% of the poorest Americans hunt. Only 1% of black or hispanics hunt. But 7% of those making more than $100,000.  It’s not the firemen and school teachers paying prices like $15,000 for four days camping to hunt elk. I don’t care how many pink rifles are sold or futile events the NRA sponsors to draw in the ladies: only 1% of women hunt.

The real problem is that many state wildlife boards have a requirement that some or all of its members hunt. That’s like setting up a school budget committee and saying all the members have to be senior citizens on a fixed income. The system is set to see every situation through one perspective.

As a result, we constantly have goofy, detrimental, illogical programs kept alive for the sake of “tradition.”

Can you imagine if birders decided they wanted to spend vast amounts of public money and land raising colorful birds from China and letting them go in our ecosystem? No. But we an incredible 19 states pay to raise and release pheasants, a bird native to China. They spend $10-$12 per adult bird, says Casey Pheiffer, an HSUS wildlife abuse expert.

Can you imagine if wildlife watchers wanted to manage the moose population so they could see them everywhere they pleased? No. But that’s more or less what we’re doing with deer, elk and feral pigs. Deer and wild hogs are managed to get maximum “recreational use”–even though they cause all kinds of car accidents and damage to forests and farms. The whole feral pig problem can largely be traced to the rise in popularity of pig hunting. Hunters liberate pigs from farms and hunting grounds so they can have the fun of shooting them later. Many PA hunters insist on only shooting males–even though that drives up the population.

Over and over wildlife decisions are made for the ever dwindling number of old guys who hunt. In 1950 10% of the population hunted; now it’s half that. They’re dying off and so is their financial power. In 2006, they spent $23 billion. That’s a lot of money–unless you compare it to wildlife watchers, who spent $46 billion. Like the old British aristocracy they try to copy, the 12.1 million hunters blow an average of $1,832 each. The commoners, the 71 million wildlife watchers, spend $642.

The same survey shows wildlife watching is also higher among the rich (40%), but nearly one-quarter of those at the bottom rungs enjoy it, too. And, why not? It’s free! In fact the survey goes out of its way to exclude wildlife watchers. In order to count, the wildlife watching has to be the “primary purpose” of the event or trip. So, if you go look for elk or eagles on a roadtrip you were taking anyway, that doesn’t count. The survey doesn’t know how to compute or put a value on someone who just casually enjoys seeing birds and mammals. And neither does our political system.

Where to go see deer

The wildlife watching here is fun, though the species are all pretty common. We rented a house in one of Bushkill’s many windy road developments and saw plenty of deer families–includge many pairs of twin fawns, wild turkey, songbirds, squirrels, crows and geese. On a path through the National Recreation Area, we also saw a turtle, blue birds, hawks and tiny broken egg that perhaps came from a hummingbird.

But! We had a really hard time getting to enjoy the National Recreation area because so many of its main attractions are totally off limits to dogs and their people.

The National Parks Service lists all the places dogs can’t go here: the 2 beaches (Smithfield Beach and Milford Beach); the three big waterfalls (Raymondskill, Dingmans or Hackers) or half the visitors centers. Even parts of the 40-mile McDade Trail are off limits to dogs.

Hunters are banned from roughly the same areas. Of course, Moxie and Huck aren’t packing, so I don’t really see what risk the pose.

If you happen to be traveling with a dog, to get to see a waterfall in the Delaware Water Gap Falls you’ll have to go to the private, but much friendlier Bushkill Falls.

Charles E. Peters and his descendants have been running the waterfall-trail concession since 1904. Because dogs are banned from much of the park, you’ll see a lot of them here. When we first entered (tickets are $11), the woman taking the ticket told us “We love dogs here” and gave each off our dogs biscuits.

It’s got the old-timey tourist kitch. Huck was fascinated with a giant chipmunk statue; the taxidermy enthralled Moxie. I loved how they put up all these warnings that make some trails sound like you’re hiking K2. It’s like putting smaller sizes on big dresses; it may be an exaggeration, but since I was able to do it 7 months pregnant, it made me feel great.

Where to SEE DEER (and anteloope and reindeer)

One day old white-tailed deer fawn in Des Plaines, IL

My big brother Tom called me this Sunday with a deer situation: a newborn fawn was lying in the yard across the street from my mom’s house in Des Plaines, IL. The cops had investigated and, he thought, took the tiny animal. They’re supposed to just leave the baby, I told him. People always think they’re orphaned, but really Bambi’s mom is just out eating and has hidden the fawn in a safe place.

Turns out the cops did the right thing: they left the fawn alone. Tom alerted the neighors. As a New York City wildlife rehabilitator I don’t get a lot of deer calls, so I called my friend Celie Wiltsie, a Poughkeepsie rehabber who gets fawns–but only when she confirms the mother is dead. She said wait 24 hours and then we’ll start worrying. She’s gotten 15 found fawn calls this season. She talked all the finders into leaving the fawn overnight and every one walked off with its mother. Celie told me the doe would come after dark when she thought no one was looking and we’d never see the fawn again.

Fawns in suburban areas do fine, Celie said. They do face cars, dogs and coyotes. But their biggest problem is aspiring human saviors. Typically they take the fawn inside, feed it inappropriate cow’s milk and solids and it deteriorates just as the mom gives up. But if you can get the fawn back out near where it was found within a day or so, the family will reunite and be fine.

The problem is leaving a newborn animal defenseless in the elements is a hard sell. It’s tricky convincing would-be rescuers to walk away. I see why some clever rehabilitator came up with the outrageous lie that animals and birds will smell the human on their babies and reject them. Tom ran into the same obstacle with our neighbor. A storm came and they hid the fawn in the shelter of their garage, feeding it cow’s milk and delighting their kids. The father said he planned to “release” it in the woods in a few days.

Front of the fawn pen in my mom's front yard. The tent is 20 feet away.

“You know it will die if you do that, right?” my brother asked. Then Tom convinced the guy to let Tom move the deer into a pen in my mom’s front yard–with a barrier towards the street. I told Tom he should switch to goat’s milk and he went driving around for hours finding it, then set up a regular feeding schedule. He also set up a tent in my mom’s front yard so he could guard the fawn, but from a distance.

The first day the fawn looked dried out and sickly. By the second day, he was jumping around a bit and making noises. Tom was set to bottle feed him the goat’s milk at 3 a.m., but overslept till 4 a.m. As he was down on the ground nursing the deer, he saw a doe in the yard nextdoor. He scrambled to get the fawn out of the pen and go hide himself in the tent. The fawn walked around, but the smallish doe passed by. Tom thought, oh, no, what is this a random, stranger deer that just happens to be walking by? Then he saw the tiny shadow pass. The fawn walked off with its mother. Tom put up a sign to let everyone know the deer crisis was over and the baby was safe with its mom.

	Where to SEE DEER (and anteloope and reindeer)
	SEE ANIMALS IN THE MIDWEST (IL, IA, IN, OH, MI, MN, WI)

How many deer are too many? / Herbert Wagner

WI governor Jim Doyle gets most of his negative publicity by union-busting, but he’s been pissing off conservationists, too. He vetoed a bill that would have taken the politics out of the state’s wildlife management, Milwuakee Journal-Sentinel columnist Paul Smith explained in a great column last week.

Wisconsin is like many states where wildlife management is supposed to be done by trained biologists, not politicians looking for a gimmick to get elected. And, like many states, the WI Department of Natural Resources has been at times distracted by political considerations. WI succeeded more than most in keeping its mission straight, Smith explained–until 1995 when Gov. Tommy Thompson started making political appointments to the board.

Since then it’s been popular to run wildlife to please hunters. They’re informed and motivated voters. And the suburban mom, who might object to overstocking the state with deer because it could lead to more car crashes, is not part of the discussion. In 2007 hunter Herbert Wagner complained on his site that WI DNR was mismanaging the deer. He wants to bring the population in check–even if it means a more open season and predators.

Voters don’t like that system and last year the legislature passed a law so that the board elects its own head. Doyle “vetoed the bill, betraying his campaign promises,” Smith says.

You may be seeing the politicalization of the WI DNR in plans to permanently end the earn-a-buck program. The only way to put a brake on out-of-control deer populations (aside from contraceptives) is to target females. If you just shoot males with pretty antlers, it’s like pushing on the gas pedal instead. So WI made hunters kill an antlerless deer first. But hunters who want there to be overflowing deer don’t like that measure at all.

Biologists already predict a surge in deer numbers and an expansion of the area with chronic wasting disease. The state wants 800,000 deer and now has 50% more than that, up 18% since 2009 when the earn-a-buck program was suspended. In 2005 Wisconsin suffered 17,555 deer-vehicle collisions, which caused $236.4 million in property damage and 12 human deaths, Wagner says. It would be nice to have a governor that thinks about that instead of getting re-elected.

SEE ANIMALS IN THE MIDWEST (IL, IA, IN, OH, MI, MN, WI)

Where to SEE DEER (and anteloope and reindeer)

Tensleep–named for the 10 nights it took to get there from near Laramie in the southeast up to Yellowstone–has got got high numbers of elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope and weasels. 127 species of bird live here, but the most entertaining for manager Trey Davis are the ravens, which can tell him apart from other humans. “They follow my family around wherever we go,” he says. “If you came out here they’d be talking about you.”

Very low numbers of spotted bats and mountain lions live there. “I’ve never known a visitor to see a mountain lion,” Davis says.

While men do hunt mountain lions outside the reserve, they usually need to use dogs to find and tree them. According to a state survey, 65% of hunters used dogs to track mountain lions and 57% of residents felt that should be banned. Aside from hunting, accidental trapping, nuisance wildlife removal and car accidents are the biggest causes of death of mountain lions in Wyoming.

The preserve is open to the public from May to about mid-October. It closes for the weather and hunting season. Many of the ungulates drift in to the preserve and some other parks, as if knowing its safer, Davis say.

The Scouts bought the 15,400 acres in 1968 and used it as a wilderness playground, the setting of long camping adventures for older girls. The upkeep was too much, so they sold most of it to the Nature Conservancy and some to the neighboring Clay Ranch. The idea was to let researchers use the massive property to figure out ways to save some of the rare plants through fire ecology and keeping out invasives.

Where to SEE ELK

SEE ANIMALS IN THE WEST (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)

Montana is something of an antelope capital with about 217,000 antelopes. Only Wyoming has more of the species that used to cover the west. A study team, including scientists across the border in Alberta, Canada, is figuring out how to make roads, fences and canals less of an obstacle in their migrations, which can reach 500 miles. Between snow and fences, the animals find the roads and tracks the only way to go.

One train killed the 270 antelope near Vandalia, where both Amtrak and freight trains run on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks, which have been cut off at times by blowing snow. The area now expects flooding in the spring.

Blaine County deputies also shot 100 injured antelope after finding the parts of 200 dismembered antelope–enough to fill 12 dump trucks–near So many of the deer and pronghorn have been injured that deputies went out and shot 100 after finding dismembered parts of 200, enough to fill 12 dump trucks, undersheriff Pat Pyette said. In another massacre, 18 deer carcasses were scattered by a railroad near a grain elevator.

Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist Craig Miller, who studies pronghorn, says that the high snow makes it hard for pronghorn to cross under cattle fences. He’s checking that federal fences have smooth, not barbed, wire on the bottom, at least 16 inches high. He recommends ranchers do the same.

• Where to See Deer, Antelope and other Ungulates
• Read about elk being reintroduced to Missouri
• Where to See Animals Out West
• Go See Some Odd Birds