FW: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?

Helen McGinnis from the Eastern Cougar Foundation forwarding the very astute commentary from John Laundre that the FEAR FACTOR.................keeping prey from lounging and feeding at will................as much as anything, is one of the key "top down" influences that has kept the predator and prey balance through the millenia...............and has kept our World, healthy, balanced and green!
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From: Helen McGinnis [HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 5:55 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?
From: John Laundre<mailto:launjohn@hotmail.com>
Again, it is not so much how many deer there are but how scared they are! I don't think predators can kill enough deer to make a difference (such systems would be unstable and have gone extinct long ago) but the fact that they scare them keeps them from using all the area, providing shelter for other plants and animals. It also effectively reduces the carrying capacity, which then would reduce the numbers of deer. Only when we start to appreciate the non-lethal impact predators have on their prey will we truely understand and appreciate the role of predators in ecosystems.
John
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From: HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net<mailto:HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net>
Subject: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:44:46 -0400
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/rooney.html
How are deer impacts and deer populations managed?
[Among the options discussed is this:]
Reintroduction of predators. The reintroduction of predators, such as the gray wolf and the cougar, has not been widely tested. Cougars are still largely absent east of the Mississippi River. Wolves have successfully recolonized northern Wisconsin and Michigan in recent years, but no compelling evidence exists yet to indicate the wolves have significantly reduced deer numbers in those regions. The reintroduction of large predators is controversial,32 and it is not clear if successful reintroductions would reduce deer numbers. Coyote and black bear are important predators of deer fawns,33 and they can account for over 50% of fawn mortality in some years and in certain places.34 It is not clear how this translates to deer population numbers; for example, some parks in the Midwestern U.S. have large coexisting deer and coyote populations.
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