When Deer Attack...

I apologize sincerely for my lack of Environmental Reform Tip this past Monday! It is the week before Thanksgiving Break and I have been frantically working to get as far ahead as possible so that I don't have to work too much during visit home. (My theory is, I haven't seen my family since October, I deserve to spend some homework free time with them!)

But...I can't let a Sunday pass without my Environmental Learning Tale! I have a good one too, for this week. But first I must answer two questions from my last post.

1st. of all: a HUGE shout out to Brenna's brilliant sister Meag, for correctly replying that last week's post title was in fact from the Disney Movie "Pocahontas" (what a ridiculously inaccurate movie, by the way...) You rock Meag!

However, no one tried to answer the environmental question, tsk tsk. That's okay though, its a pretty cool answer. Planting a cover crop like beans actually prevents soil erosion. If you plant cover crops while you're not using the plot of land, much less soil will wash away. Preventing erosion is good for so many reasons, not the least of which being preventing sediment deposition in waterways. Yay cover crops!

Okay, here is my Environmental Learning Tale for the week...

"Hey! Get That Deer Out Of My Living Room!"

If you are from Pennsylvania (or Maryland...or Delaware...or New Jersey...etc) you are familiar with road signs encouraging you to watch out for the deer that might commit hara-kiri by throwing themselves in front of your car late at night.* Not very nice for the deer, or the car owner. The fun doesn't end there though, some deer have even been known to take a bite or two out of houses. What's up with that? But as there come to be more and more deer (and less and less deer food) our houses start to look like a five star meal.

But where the heck did all those deer come from?

Well, there are lots of ways you could take that question. But here's the environmental answer. A long time ago in the lower 48 states there used to be large packs of roving dogs known as wolves. For all of you who just recoiled in terror, wolves are no where near as bad as the media makes them out to be. They are actually pack animals who care for their pups, and even watch out for the sick and injured members of their pack. Yes, they kill and eat large animals, and yes, they are really good at what they do. But they are not the vicious, blood thirsty beasts that popular culture has made them out to be.

In case you can't tell, they are my favorite animal...

Back to the deer though. So there were lots of wolves running around North America, and they were eating the deer that also were running around North America. For that matter, the people running around North America were also eating the deer, but the point is, everything was in balance.

But then, man decided that wolves were going to eat their children (MYTH!!!! NOT REAL!!!!) and so they killed them all and were really proud of themselves.

Many years passed.

And now man is putting up signs on the side of the road and insuring their cars because deer keep jumping in front of them. The connection? With out the wolves to eat the deer, the deer began to over populate the forest. In some places they actually strip the land of vegetation. What's a farmer to do?

Clearly, they need to hire hunters to snipe out the deer.

Sounds like a good plan, right? Well, in theory, but not really in practice. The hunters are actually not helping the deer (or the people) very much at all. You see, wolves are pretty cool critters, they are good at running, and at jumping, but the one thing they can't do is run down and take out a healthy adult deer. They have to go after the sick ones instead, because those are the only ones they can bring down. Kinda puts a crimp in the idea of wolves as vicious killing machines doesn't it? I mean, deer aren't that big...

People don't have that problem though, and if it has four legs, antlers, and is deer-like, the hunters working to control the population will shoot it. Unfortunately, more often than not, the dead deer was actually a perfectly healthy adult. And if there are no healthy adults, guess who gets to repopulate the herd?

In short, because we killed off the deer's natural predator, the wolf, we now have diseased deer leaping in front of our cars late at night, and eating our houses.

I think the deer got the short end of the stick when the wolf went out, and I think we did to. In fact, I begin to wonder if there was ever any long end to the stick at all...maybe the deer ate it.

So that's that. I hope you enjoyed that tale as much as I enjoyed writing it. To go along with it, here's the environmental question for the week.

Environmental Question: What is the scientific name for the Gray Wolf?

* Deer do not actually commit hara-kiri because they aren't committing ritualistic Japanese suicide using a Katana. They're just trying to cross the road.