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Deer vs. Nature
The biggest problem with the woods is the deer. After being almost exterminated decades ago, white-tailed deer have rebounded in southern NY and in New England in general. Every once in a while, some ambitious coyote will stalk a fawn, but the adults never feel anxious about the scrawny canines. Their predators, wolves and pumas, have been gone for centuries, and aren't going to be back anytime soon. The deer population has been exploding without bounds, simultaneously ravaging saplings and other native undergrowth, while benefiting invasive monocultures of garlic mustard, Japanese barberry and the Chinese tree of heaven. Unless the deer are controlled, preferably by hunting, they will fundamentally damage the native biodiversity of local ecosystems.
In Westchester, a county of New York City suburbs, hunting is prohibited. Many naïve "advocates of nature" think hunting is unnatural, or that it is cruel. Well, get over it: hunting is a primal and necessary force of nature, and nature is cruel. Since the apex predators are gone, we have to do their job instead. And, for the safety of children and hikers, we don't have to let any yahoo with a gun go shooting in the woods behind someone's backyard; instead, why don't we let professional sharpshooters do the job? This might cost a bit of money, but Westchester County has been spending lots of money already preserving land just to let the ecosystems be pillaged by raiding deer, and its time to fight back. Unless we allow a natural deer cull, undergrowth plant species, saplings, the birds that nest in them, and ultimately the forests themselves will be in jeopardy.
There is a small woodlot, about five acres, in the Westchester town of Ardsley that it is overrun with these rats of the forest (deer). The forest floor is carpeted with a thick overgrown lawn of garlic mustard, a European invasive-except for in a small swampy section. A few deer resistant natives hold on to the forested hillsides--ferns, jack in the pulpits, Virginia creeper--but they are on the brink of disappearance. A sunny field is overgrown with the Chinese tree of heaven, and clusters of Japanese barberry, a thorny shrub, are beginning to take hold in a few areas. What do all these invasive have in common? The deer don't eat them. When their competitors are browsed close to annihilation by hordes of deer, they take advantage of the weakness, and out compete them. The natives never stood a chance. Native plants have a hard time battling invasive plants normally, but with the deers' cooperation, the odds are grievously stacked against them.
On the other hand, there is another nearby wooded area, the Greenburg Nature Center, which is devoid of deer. Invasives aren't absent from the Nature Center; however, they don't dominate the habitat or form dense monocultures. Instead, they compete and coexist with natives more evenly. Garlic mustard stalks mingle among wildflowers, grasses, other indistinct native underbrush, and a scattering of Japanese barberry bushes. In a sunny former orchard, there are a few trees of heaven, but they do not have the upper hand against the maples, oaks, and cherries. This ecosystem is not perfect, but it is relatively harmonious. Without the ‘deer factor,' many native plants are able to successfully compete against invasives in southern New York.
What will happen if we decide not to control the deer population? As many people can already see, the undergrowth will go first, the bushes, wildflowers and saplings. Animals that depended on those plants, like certain birds, will disappear. Over the long term, the destruction of saplings will end the regeneration of the forest, and as the trees fall, none will replace them. Instead, we will be left with a brushy invasive tangle that would offer good shelter for deer, but not many other animals. By then, the local ecosystem, the temperate forest, would become extinct, along with countless animals and plants that depended on it.
So let's cull a few deer. It's unpopular, but it is essential. Or else, we will let an ecosystem that took hundreds of millions of years to evolve be razed to the ground in less than twenty years. And that would really be cruel.
People always come up with the same answer that lethal methods are the only way to control the deer population. I beg to differ. The fact is that we are deforesting and mutilating the very few pieces of open space we have left in Westchester at a much faster piece than the deer. Let’s get the facts straight. Keep in mind that the real estate bubble is due to people overextending their credit limits and building monstrous homes (big enough to host an indoor hockey tournament) that they can’t afford. The same applies to shopping males; for example, the Ridge Hill Development in Yonkers that deforested over 80 acres of pristine woods.
I think it’s incumbent upon us to live in harmony with nature and our financial capabilities and to find humane ways of dealing with the deer overpopulation, and other environmental problems us humans create. For example, if a developer chooses to use a green area to build a new home or development, they should be required to pay an offset that can be used to secure open space elsewhere. Maintaining open space and living in harmony is good for everyone. It’s really sad that politicians just think about the green they get from real estate projects and forget that there are other people and animals living in this world!!!
I think your point is valid; people are causing a lot of environmental destruction in Westchester. However, complaining about mall contruction doesn't solve our overpopulation of deer. Anyway, before we protect more open space, we should preserve what we already have. Why should we spend millions of dollars to buy more land if we let our current propertiess be compeletely overrun? And condemning sprawl doesn't solve the problem, but hunting does. Anyway, humane methods of solving the problem, like birth control, would be too costly, and would need to be readministered anually, and conservation funds are limited as it is. Hunting, on the other hand, would be free.
I agree with Marx - the point is that we're in a situation, requiring short-term and long-term solutions insofar as the environment and overpopulation of deer. Culling the deer herd is a very small part of the problem and solution. And how does "hunting stop sprawl," like you say? This does not make sense unless you think there are developments with 100's of hunting stores thriving off open deer hunting ranges in Westchester. In addition to killing the deer, I'd like to hear politiicans also discuss how the're going to reduce speculative real estate development and bogus mortgages(commercial and residential) that's so bad for the environmental and our economy.
Firstly, I never said hunting stops sprawl. In fact, although I am aware that sprawl is seriously detrimental to rural environments, I didn't promote a solution to sprawl. Instead, I believe that, in Westchester, the overpopulation of deer is decimating the local environment, so, to control the deer population, it is necesary to permit bowhunting of deer.
California attempted to control the deer population on tiny Angel Island in the middle of SF Bay with "birth control". It didn't work. Finally the state hired professional sharpshooters to reduce the population at an enormous cost.
Contrary to urban and suburban popular opinion, few hunters are "yahoos" who go around shooting up the woods; at least not here in the West. Why doesn't Westchester County consider contacting a charitable group, such as "Hunters for the Hungry", to reduce the deer population? This volunteer organization hunts and donates the take to food banks and other groups that feed those in need.
Stop urban sprawl? End pronatalist and pro-immigration policies.
(http://www.npg.org/specialreports/immxuspopgrowth.htm). Pro-natalist policies include tax deductions for all children, and social programs that support individuals who have large families. Contrary to popular belief, population growth, through reproduction and immigration do play a significant part in US resource consumption. It is very easy to rant and rave about sprawl; it is another to stop it. One thing that would stop sprawl would be to end the zoning conversion of agricultural lands for agricultural purposes, another would be to keep taxes on working agricultural lands low while having significantly higher taxes on converted lands - but neither land use approach can work unless population growth is brought under control.
"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space
..."In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintences, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature"(Emerson)
"Think globally, act locally."
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