Poor Doug Hotton. As deer project leader for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, he and others in the Wildlife & Heritage Service have to develop a new ten-year deer management plan. If Hallmark had an “I feel sorry for you” card, I would send him one.
Dealing with disparate views of deer hunters, animal right groups, biologists, hunting clubs, suburban lawn-lovers, deer-watchers, farmers, city folk and such has got to be like herding cats. Some people are lukewarm in their views; others avid or rabid. How to deal with all that is the mess that DNR is dealing with right now.
A current ? but expiring ? ten-year plan is on the DNR website. Prior to that plan wildlife managers decided what was best based on science, Hotton said. Today, we get politics, people, positions, and posturing.
If it were up to me, I would keep the current seasons and increase archery/bow hunting seasons in select suburbs where you can?t shoot a rifle for fear of hitting something 1?1/2 miles away. A careful increase in suburban archery might ratchet down the complaints about deer decorating cars or munching on foundation plantings. It also could ramp up the harvest to make hunters happy. It should be a win-win for some of the above crowd.
Such planning is not easy, and fortunately, I am not a wildlife biologist sitting in on planning sessions. Some things are not sensible. While I support the idea of free-ranging wolves and mountain lions, reintroduction won?t work. The large range of these critters would result in them being road kills along with deer, not to mention fostering fears of those with a small pet or offspring frolicking in the backyard.
Deer contraception seems to have not progressed far enough to be reasonable or cost effective. Trained sharpshooters are expensive and require deer baiting and shooting under carefully controlled situations. Feeding deer to prevent them from eating your lawn ornamentals doesn?t work. It just makes more deer. Good food makes for good fawns.
Relocation makes no sense, since everywhere in the country that can support deer already have all the deer they can stand. Studies from other states show that relocation costs up to $800 per deer with mortality rates ranging from 55 to 85 percent.
A telephone survey for the new plan comes to 330 pages. Added to that are comments from public meetings around the state, faxed, phoned and e-mailed ideas, and more public massaging of an October draft plan.
The end result, chiseled in stone, will be a December Christmas present to us. From that we will get the 2008 deer hunting regulations, along with plans for the next decade. But it is going to be tough for the DNR ? and Hotton.
Poor Doug Hotton. Send him a card.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].
