State wildlife management practices directed to
maximize deer numbers for recreational hunters, rural America’s virtual
extermination of the wolf over the past two centuries, coupled with forest
management practices and agricultural expansion indirectly providing feed for
deer and the encroachment of real estate housing developments with
deer-attracting gardens and vegetation in municipal parks, have had unforeseen
consequences associated with high White tail deer numbers; and elk in western
states. Two of these unforeseen consequences concern public health and
potential harm to the livestock industry, which a higher population of wolves
across the U.S. would do much to rectify.
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According to the Minnesota Dept. of Natural
Resources, “After the young (fawns) are born each spring, there are
between 900,000 and 1,000,000 (White tail) deer in Minnesota. The hunting
season is important to keep the deer population from getting too large. Each
year, Minnesota hunters harvest between 150,000 and 200,000 deer”.
Hunters seek out the healthiest deer and trophy
antler-bearers in particular. A seasonal hunt eliminating almost one quarter
of the deer population means starvation for wolf in deer-hunted zones at the
start of winter. This probably increases their predation on livestock.
Increasing deer hunting quotas to better regulate deer numbers is not a
biologically appropriate response even though it is a multibillion-dollar
source of revenue for states and equipment suppliers.
Wolves prey on deer year-round, taking the slower
ones weakened by injury and disease, and therefore play a significant role in
controlling diseases carried by deer, notably prion-causing Chronic Wasting
Disease (CWD). This disease also affects mule deer, elk and moose and is now
spreading across the U.S. and Canada. Wolves are probably immune. But if these
prions mutate and cross the species barrier and affect livestock, especially
since prions have now been found in plants consumed by deer and also in
agricultural crops consumed by livestock and humans, the consequences could
have devastating economic consequences for the livestock industry.
Read more at San Diego Loves Green and Project Coyote.
Snarling Wolf photo via Shutterstock.