Jim Beers: Wildlife Non-Management - Crossing a goose with a deer

Crossing a goose with a deer

Should we call the offspring of these interbred urban wildlife policies
"geer" or "deese"? Like the grafting of pears onto apple trees that I
studied decades ago in a Utah State horticulture class, our urban wildlife
policies are artificial and geared to provide urban "wine and brie"
chitchat. Unlike the grafting of certain fruits, our current wildlife
policies concerning deer and geese cause death, property destruction,
disease, pollution, and lifestyle restrictions intended to justify
governmental power growth on behalf of environmental and animal rights
extremist agendas.

My current home range is Northern Virginia. We are a microcosm today of
urban and national do-goodism run amok. We pride ourselves on gaining
political power over the rest of the state (akin to Boston, Chicago, Los
Angeles, Philadelphia, et al). We are increasingly dominating state politics
and electing state and Federal politicians that advocate higher taxes,
expansion of government power over our lives and activities, and the
"protection" of animals and "the environment". Democrat Governors and
Republican Legislators disagree only on how much and how fast to raise
taxes. Northern Virginians enthuse over things like destroying heavily used
state highways in nearby National Parks and "saving" polar bears (that are
doing fine, thank you) to declaring more Wildernesses and Marine Sanctuaries
by government fiat. Simultaneously we can conceive of no non-urban area or
animal that should be available for others to use and we know of no property
right concerning animals that should be protected or maintained. In sum, we
are perplexed that others hunt or fish or trap or have guns or cut trees or
even farm or ranch. As horse owners and pet owners are steadily stripped of
their rights, we imagine eventual control and elimination of all plant and
animal uses and management by an expanded government that we control.
Endangered Species Listings, widespread introduction and protection of
deadly predators, restrictive mandates over public and private property, and
incremental expansion of Federal powers through legislation are examples of
the tentacles to be grown by accessing tax revenues and creating programs
for one manufactured environmental and animal rights "emergency" after
another.

The self-destructive and farcical nature of these truly socialist fantasies
is demonstrated in our urban midst but nowhere is it allowed to be mentioned
or recognized. I am speaking of the "ostrichian", head-in-the-sand
awareness of the deer and resident Canada goose conflicts engulfing us.

Growing numbers of Northern Virginia residents are dying and being injured
in auto incidents (they aren't "accidents") by excessive deer and Canada
goose population densities spilling over onto our roads and into our parking
lots. Lyme disease from deer ticks and coliform bacteria infestations (from
goose droppings) of schoolyards, parks, parking lots, grassy expanses, and
waterways continue to increase. Property owners are unable to plant most
ornamental flowers and shrubs devoured by deer while gardens are only
possible behind border-type walls akin to Israeli or US/Mexico proposals
that are both unsightly and prohibited by covenants. Lunch breaks for
workers are marred by injuries from aggressive male geese during breeding
seasons while female geese incubating or caring for young cause injuries and
heavily pollute certain areas that become effectively off-limits to
residents and workers. County woodlands look like a weed-whacker has
chopped up everything up to five feet off the ground thanks to overgrazing
by deer (imagine the uproar if we were told it was due to some ranchers
cattle!); thereby eliminating thousands of County acres of habitat for
everything from birds and amphibians to reptiles and furbearers.

So what do we hear from our bureaucracy (remember we are one of the richest
counties in the nation)? We hear that they need "more" money and people.
Their very limited and restrictive hunting rules make any hunting both
problematic and impossible to be effective. They constantly whine about "not
providing sport hunting" (i.e. a buck harvest) while maintaining property
restrictions on hunting and keeping within state regulations that are set
for "sport hunting". Goose harvest opportunities abound but are effectively
blocked everywhere by county regulations. This is like the hidden agenda
behind all the county "concealed weapon" restrictions for areas around
schools and parks and government buildings and recreational centers that are
really intended to make carrying a legal and authorized weapon both
impractical and illegal for duly authorized permit holders going about their
daily business. While they pay police "sharpshooters" to kill a few deer
and effectively prohibit any goose harvest; they use the "15% increase per
year in geese" and the "overpopulation of deer" to tell us what to plant and
not to plant. They tell us to "be careful" when driving and how ultimately
"we must learn to live with the deer" and the geese.

What about the papers? This is a bonanza for them. They run article after
article about the young ladies with their border collies making a living
from chasing geese from the industrial park to the country club to the
schoolyard. We get articles about how certain folks use everything from
urine to garlic to ineffectively and only temporarily ward off deer much
like Transylvanian peasants warding off vampires. We get all sorts of
interviews from the earnest and sincere bureaucrats about how hard they are
working and how we (their bosses?) need to adapt to deer and geese. Then
there are the young graduate students in their summer uniforms holding a
fawn or looking for goose nests to addle the eggs; this makes us all swoon
and hope that our children will do such wonderful things when they grow up.
All of these are pockmarked with disinformation quotes from animal rights
lobbyists about how "hunting only increases reproduction" (I thought it was
responsible for the extinction of everything from buffalo and passenger
pigeons to wolves and lynx?). Then there is always the old canard about
"birth control" for the deer. Of course there is no mention of the cost or
infeasibility of applying such "control" or the constant influx of
surrounding fertile deer or (even if it were feasible) the effects of
"living with" these artificially high and out-of-place populations of deer
and geese. Getting anything published contrary to these propaganda pieces
is all but impossible.

How about the Universities and "research" and "best science"? They continue
to do what they do best, that is they conduct research and make
pronouncements in harmony with the wishes and grant topics being funded at
the moment. Environmental and animal rights organizations have gained
control of the levers of governmental largesse in these areas much as they
have steered the papers and media into choral backup roles for their radical
agendas. As the school teachers fill the kids' heads with myths and
propaganda about hunters and wildlife et al and the papers and TV's run the
same lines of malarkey and the politicians cater to these urban imaginings:
the idea that whatever "native" animal lives wherever or in what numbers
then "man" must "adapt or else" (as bizarre as that sounds) is accepted as
right. Professors, like bureaucrats that don't chirp this "line" face
career decline at best and termination and ridicule at worst. Thus is the
product called "best science" to be touted as the final word on all such
issues from Endangered Species Listings and government land control
proposals to energy development and non-lethal animal "control".

So other than grousing about this what should be done?

1.)    Reduce the numbers of deer and geese in Northern Virginia. This is
done by killing them.

2.)    Keep the numbers of deer and geese at acceptable levels. This is
done by killing the annual increase.

3.)    Modify County regulations that restrict hunting.

4.)    Get State law modifications that allow deer and goose harvests at
times and locations necessary to both reduce and keep reduced local
populations of these species.

5.)    Administer a County hunting program that capitalizes on hunter
interest and hunter licensing revenue as opposed county employees or general
taxes.

6.)    Specify areas to allow hunting and methods to be used.

7.)    Educate County hunters to assure the methods and locations and
procedures used are compatible with safety and the desired harvest.

8.)    Allow hunters to kill bucks in order to make them take more does.

9.)    Investigate uses for the venison and goose meat in addition to human
consumption and for things like hides and feathers in order to utilize the
animals killed and possibly generate more revenue for county administration
of these wildlife populations.

None of this is rocket science or out-of-date thinking. Animals reproduce
and when they conflict with human interests they must be managed or even
eliminated where appropriate. There is nothing "wrong" or "bad" about
killing animals. There is nothing "immoral" or "improper" about using
everything from an animal.

We should be developing new methods and delivery systems to manage these
animal populations in and around urban areas. This should be the job of
bureaucrats and Universities who are currently busy building careers and
grant totals based on the manufactured interests of politicians fishing for
votes in the next election. This only works as long as urban voters
continue to believe lies and propaganda that is being refuted all around
them.

The Preamble to our US Constitution states that "We" formed our government
to "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity". There is not, nor should there be, anything
in that charge about protecting animals endangering human life, property, or
the "commons" (i.e. public property). Government should be protecting our
lives, our health, and our property. Deer and geese in current numbers no
more belong in urban settings than cobras belong in cribs.

The appeal of seeing a deer or hearing geese can be a precious commodity in
an urban setting. It is wrong to allow this experience to become a source
of death, disease, and social turmoil. Getting and keeping their numbers at
acceptable levels is the challenge because left unattended, deer and geese
will become despised pests and the eventual reaction will jeopardize far
more than some bureaucrats career or some professors grant totals.

Jim Beers

Retired Wildlife Biologist, Refuge Manager, and US Special Agent - US Fish &
Wildlife Service.

29 December 2006

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