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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Unless you plan to take them out with cross bows, you will end up with a decimated yard and your neighbors yards will be eaten up as well. And [b]then the deer will be so healthy they will have more fawns, and then they will run out in front of cars in your neighborhood. 
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So if you don't plan to kill the deer and eat them, don't feed them.[/quote]

I want them to have more fawns! My property contains and borders on woods. They have no reason to go in the street.[/quote]

So, you just think that they'll stay in your yard forever?!?! Because you "have woods"? :lol:

This is an illustration of the problem right here.   People just don't understand deer. They think they're pets, rather than wild animals with their own agendas. And part of that agenda is going out and finding new areas to graze and browse. Which means crossing roads.

The sad reality is we have about 70-90% MORE deer than we should.

One square mile of "natural" deer habitat (mix of broadleaf forest and field/meadow) with no human presence (houses, buildings or roads) should support about 15-30 deer, depending on the type of vegetation. That's the carrying capacity of deer for that square mile.

There are many places in southern MoCo with 250+ deer per square mile. That's insane. It's a level NEVER encountered in nature. Ever. It just isn't. The forests can't sustain that kind grazing. Look at the woods in most county parks - you can usually see 50-100 yards through the trees. That shouldn't be possible with a healthy forest. The area of the forest floor between large canopy trees should be choked with undergrowth and young saplings. Instead, its sparse and empty. All growth below 6 feet has been eaten away, except for a few types of invasive plants that deer won't eat. There are now native shrubs, and no young trees. When existing the mature trees die, there won't be new younger trees replacing them. Gradually, the forest will disappear and turn into a field.

The hugely inflated numbers of deer in this area are from two factors, both caused by humans: lack of predation (animal predators and human hunters) and a overabundance of food sources in suburban backyards, along roadways, and other "edge" areas where new plant growth is most aggressive. Deer aren't deep-woods creatures. They live and eat along forest edges and margins. When you take a square mile of forest and divide it up into lots of small parcels and yards, and cross cross it with roads, you create a lot more edges and margins to that forest. That increases the available forage, and increases the number of deer.

Without an increase in predation to accomany this, eventually the lines on the graph representing population and available food will intersect. After that point, the population is in slow starvation, while destroying the habitat at the same time. We are at or past that point in most of the county right now.

There are just too many of them. Their numbers need to be about 1/5th of what they currently are. [/quote]

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