Deer Wars
Deer are an overpopulated nuisance in our area now. They wander unconcernedly around the streets of some of the smaller towns. They graze like cattle along the shoulders of the highways at night, never flinching as the cars go by. There are wrecks involving deer almost daily. Drive to Wilmington and back on I-40, and the odds are you’ll see at least half a dozen carcasses along the roadside, and at night you’ll likely see three times that many live ones.
Time was when you rarely if ever saw seagulls or sandpipers inland, let alone this far inland (Raleigh). But the region is alive with them now. They’ve moved in to forage off the garbage to be found in shopping center parking lots, and now they’ve adapted to an inland existence. During the summer, I see sandpipers in our gravelled parking lots at work, nearly every day.
Smaller varmints like opossums and raccoons are just as overpopulated and just as much of a nuisance. They roam all over the city looking for garbage. I have come face to face with one of each on my very doorstep within the past year, and I live very near the center of town.
Not to mention the rabies problem, at least where the raccoons are concerned.
Too much of anything is good for nothing.
But, most animals taste a lot better…
For the newbies, I live on an old limestone quarry in Indiana, and I allow all my friends and neighbors to hunt anytime. All the guys have stories of some hunter getting his ass kicked by a buck. Thanks to hunting, we don’t have an overpopulation problem.
I don’t allow coyote hunting. There are no recipes for coyote meat, and they’re not a nuisance to me.
Posted by Oink
01/13/2006 at 10:03 AM
I’m against sport hunting-so count me out!
GO BAMBI GO!Posted by Annoying Little Twerp
01/13/2006 at 10:23 AM
Most of my daughters (accompanied by their father) did their best to help with this problem this year. They weren’t able to go out nearly as much this year, so they didn’t fill their tags. They saw LOTS of deer, but no real shots.
One of my girls told her dad that it was ‘okay’ that they didn’t fill the tags this year...but “could be try harder next year?!?!?!”
You haven’t lived until you have seen a 10 year old girl with ‘buck fever’!
It’s bambi’s tough luck to be made of yummy venison.
Hmmm, venison chili.
Never tasted elk. I’m willing to give it a shot should the opportunity present itself.
I gotta admire a dog that earns her keep. So, is she sharing with you, OCM, or are you sharing with her?
Yeah, I knew you’d be taking good care of Sue-Sue.
Sometimes our dog ate better than we did. Mom always got her ground chuck while we were eating the cheaper hamburger. She got the packaged dog food too, I forget the brand, little cubes in a plastic bag. That was left as a last resort for later at night though.
Trixie loved chili but wouldn’t eat the beans ... after the first time. She did NOT like to fart.
The office I worked in some years ago, one of those low flat-roofed modern brick, aluminum and glass horrors, was in suburbia. I was just outside my boss’s office, waiting for him to finish a phone call, when a huge ruckus came from within. A deer had crashed through the plate glass window and jumped up on his desk and was dancing around in circles spraying blood everywhere. I can still see George sitting there wide-eyed, phone in hand, speckled with blood looking up at the deer, which, in a few seconds, bounded back through the smashed window and disappeared.
Last year, the damned deer took every single bud off our day lilies, and a few years before that, one of my friends had all of his dozens of azaleas chewed down to nubs.
We are not in the boonies stealing habitat, but in a forty-five year old subdivision just over the city line and development goes miles beyond us. There are more deer in the US now than when John Smith & Co. arrived; it’s time to remove bag limits and bring back predators. The deer have no natural enemies and will breed until they starve.
dick: Try “Liquid Fence”—worked for me waaay out in the boonies. Smells like rotten eggs when sprayed on, dries odorless to us, not to deer. In fact it contains “putrescent egg solids”. Yummy.
Posted by Oink
01/13/2006 at 06:36 PM
Hey Oink! Do you think that would keep my neighbor away? Just spray it down the property line?
Only if your neighbor is a quadruped herbivore.
Posted by Oink
01/13/2006 at 10:09 PM
Don’t have a deer problem in my neighborhood, but there are many areas in St. Louis County that do..............The major problem in my area are the Canada geese - they are everywhere that there is water - my hospital has been trying to get rid of them for years - no luck......There is goose poop everywhere - my car seems to be always in the “flyover” of these damn birds ...............The worst time is in the spring - mating season - we have had employees & visiters attacked & bitten by the geese - they are very territorial........
This weekend is “Eagle Days” here in St. Louis..........the bald eagles come to our area to feed at the locks & dams ..............I will go to the Chain of Rocks Bridge for the activities - except that it will be warm - 40’s - to try to photograph the eagles........In years past I have gone when it is 0 degrees - the eagles would be more active..........hopefully this year with my longer zoom lens I may get lucky..........Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Dottie
01/13/2006 at 11:11 PM
Oink - Thanks - In fact we changed tactics last spring and used that stuff, planted lots of allium around our yard and sprayed deer favorites with Bobbex and so far(crossed fingers) had no problems this spring and summer.
OCM - my latest camera is a Nikon 8800 with a 10x optical zoom equal to 300mm - I love it...........except for it’s macro ..........last summer shooting macro in my butterfly garde I relied on my Nikon 5700 - much better for close-ups................However the Nikon 8800 pictures are ever so much brighter with the 8 megapixels - the pics I took last Sept. at our Great Forest Park Balloon Race gave me some awesome colors!!
Today I took my grandaughter to “Eagle Days” - we walked the Chain of Rocks Bridge - however, it was too warm (40’s) to get any eagle pics diving for fish............We did attend a talk by a naturalist guide about the eagles - she had an eagle from The World Bird Sanctuary here in St. Louis and Helena was fascinated seeing the eagle close-up.........I am going to send a pic to Allan- maybe he’ll post it
Posted by Dottie
01/14/2006 at 11:32 PM
