Wall Street Journal By Frank Hyman 7/9/2021
Before Europeans came to America, there were an estimated 30 million wild deer in what is now the eastern U.S. By 1900 that figure had fallen by 99% due to unrestricted hunting, and conservationists made it their mission to protect deer from extinction. They might have succeeded too well. Today the wild deer population has rebounded to precolonization levels, becoming a nuisance to suburban homeowners who find deer invading their yards and gardens.
Conventional wisdom has it that suburban development takes away habitat from deer, forcing them to treat our yards as drive-throughs. The reality is that suburban sprawl creates better deer habitat than a feral forest can. Despite an estimated 1.5 million car collisions with deer in the U.S. each year, the numbers of deer grazing and razing backyards continues to rise. With our pampered gardens for their dining rooms, deer find richer foods than whatever once grew on the wild plots swallowed by suburbia. Gorging like gourmands on 7 pounds of plant matter a day, a doe that might normally drop one fawn a year now often gives birth to twins or triplets. More buildings and cars also mean fewer predators, whether with two legs or four.
Urban-adjacent deer multiply at the expense of forest tree seedlings, songbirds and native plants. Deer can be frustrating for gardeners, but that is the least of Mother Nature’s worries. Large deer populations also inflict serious damage on wild lands. A 2013 report by The Nature Conservancy declared that “no other threat to forested habitats is greater at this point in time—not lack of fire, not habitat conversion, not climate change.” Urban-adjacent deer multiply at the expense of forest tree seedlings, songbirds and native plants, as well as farmers and drivers.
More:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-solve-americas-wild-deer-problem-eat-them-11625842696
