Hunting in the city

Unfortunately, both of these articles are not available online without a subscription.  If you can find them in print, they are well worth reading, especially the Time article - very thorough and  informative - the WSJ is more opinion.

The subject of both pieces is the growth of wildlife populations - in their natural habitat and in urban settings.  The results of overly abundant populations in the wild can be devastating for the animals, for the ecosystem, and in cities it can be dangerous to humans.  The protections government put into place to support animal survival may have worked too well.  Surprising and thought provoking articles!

Can't See the Forest for the Deer

To cull or not to cull? That is the question towns increasingly face.

Wall Street Journal 3/12/2014

By Al Cambronne

The U.S. now has 30 million deer, a hundred times more than a century ago. From California to Long Island, the rising deer population has resulted in widespread property damage and crop losses, as well as an increase in Lyme disease and often fatal deer-car collisions. The causes are clear: a lack of natural predators, increased hunting restrictions, and "suburban sprawl" that has created a new attractive habitat.

Less well known is the damage the exploding deer population is doing to America's woodlands and forests. Each year, every one of those hungry deer devours around 3,000 pounds of vegetation. When they browse too many of those tons from the same small scrap of forest, it has consequences for us, the deer themselves, the ecosystem of which they're a part, and the American landscape.

Read the remainder in the Wall Street Journal.

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Time Magazine

America’s Pest Problem: It’s Time to Cull the Herd

David Von Drehle 

  
Dec. 9, 2013

Photograph by Daniel J Cox / Getty Images

After nearly wiping out many wildlife species 50 years ago, Americans are once again living close--sometimes uncomfortably so--to all kinds of feral creatures. Why wildlife in the U.S. needs stronger management

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Faced with an outbreak of lyme disease and rising deer-related car accidents, the city council of Durham, N.C., authorized bow hunting inside city limits in November. Authorities in San Jose, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, voted to allow hunting wild pigs within that city in October. Rock Island, Ill., one of the five Quad Cities on the Mississippi River, recently approved bow hunting in town, provided that it occurs in green spaces — golf courses, parks, cemeteries — or on private land.

Across the country, hunting is poised for a comeback, and not just because the folks on Duck Dynasty make it look like so much fun. We have too many wild animals — from swine to swans. Whether you're a Walmart employee in Florida wondering what to do with the alligator at your door, a New Yorker with a hawk nesting on your high-rise or an Ohio golfer scattering a flock of Canada geese, you now live, work and play in closer proximity to untamed fauna than any other generation of Americans in more than a century.

Too many deer, wild pigs, raccoons and beavers can be almost as bad for the animals as too few. This is why communities across the country find themselves forced to grapple with a conundrum. The same environmental sensitivity that brought Bambi back from the brink over the last century now makes it painfully controversial to do what experts say must be done: a bunch of these critters need to be killed

Read the whole article in Time Magazine.