Deer Birth Control

Over lunch I read a rant about deer in (sub)urban (sprawl) areas, and couldn't help but post this reply (and of course replicate it here!).

Human Birth Control
By Buck Schneider, 10-20-05

Attention wilderness commissioners and administrators, I have the solution to your human problem. Normally, you'd have to hire costly consultants, set up stakeholder committees, have public hearings, and wait years for such a plan. This time, it's fast, free and easy (three of my favorite four-letter words officials don't use enough).

Urban human herds have overrun almost every wilderness in the New West, making foraging a lost art and pumping up the benefits of animals that scale fences, invasive species, and human infrastructure. These aren't humans coming to our territory for a geranium treat now and then. These are permanent residents -- third- or fourth-generation humans born in our territory, growing up in our territory, and reproducing the next generation in our territory -- without ever seeing a four-legged, heavily-antlered western human control specialist. These ridiculously tame and overly bold humans ravage the earth with expensively landscaped yards, flatten wild spaces, knock down native trees, own dogs, lure mountain lions into our territory at night, drive their cars without signaling, and frequently scare the stuffing out of me during my pre-dawn trots to my grazing grounds.

( Read on! )