You may be seeing what's known as an "artifact" increase; prior to the sterilization program the deer on SI were relatively unpressured. Even with higher numbers, less movement would predispose towards fewer deer/vehicle collisions (relative to once you add pressure).
With an added human element you've simply prodded deer into being more mobile and you've increased the potential for deer/vehicle collisions. We'll have a better barometer on the programs effectiveness when it's either stopped or greatly reduced and the deer resume normal (or close to normal) movement patterns.
If they’re gonna go with darts, it would be far more effective (and a boatload cheaper) to dart and euthanize the does and leave the bucks alone. Or they could do a laparoscopic removal of their ovaries instead of snipping the boys. Then the surviving/intact does would get bred right in that first cycle and it’d be done with. No reason for bucks to swim over there to meet chicks. More likely they’d see bucks doing that voluntary self-deportation thang for lack of opportunities...
Solved.
But from WB’s perspective, it’s not a sustainable business model.
Dr. Williams's Link
There would still be infiltration from neighboring population expansion, but not the draw of Doe In Heat to draw bucks in to provide what a snipped buck can’t do.
Except perhaps for the fact that as does outside of the surgically altered area are successfully bred, they stop sending out those lovely fragrances while those in the snipping zoneKeep cycling through. The bucks that come in in response to the call may face stiff local competition, but the resident bucks are going to run themselves ragged and suffer all of the types of mortality associated with breeding behavior.... at a much higher rate.
Under “normal circumstances, the bucks would come out of basically one rut cycle in good enough condition to make it through a typical winter, right?
I just find it ironic as hell that so many people who are opposed to bow hunting because they think it’s “inhumane” are totally OK with field surgery on animal which has to recover without benefit of any form of analgesia, wound dressings, or so much as a bar of soap.
If a bowhunter bungles a shot and the animal doesn’t expire for 24 hours, then its suffering is over in 24 hours. A deer recovering from surgery isn’t done suffering yet.
And then what do you do with all of the coyotes who drift into the area to feed on the victims of buck-on-buck violence and post-op complications?
Your description of the irony of an archer taking a lousy shot and wounding an animal in an attempt to kill it as opposed to surgical sterilization recovery is lost on me. Agreed, deer capture and surgery are not pretty, but are done by trained professionals/veterinarians in a controlled environment, under anesthesia as opposed to an archer slinging an arrow at a suburban deer who maybe took a hunter safety course. At the end of the surgery, the animals are sutured and given slow release IM doses of antibiotics to stave off infection to insure their survival as they heal over a few days. You are equating this to a blown archery shot that maims a deer or takes it 24 hours to expire? You may be against non-lethal means and I get that, but come on man. Who are you trying to sell that BS to?
When bucks are sterilized, does cycle. If in adjacent areas the does have all/predominantly been bred, then the bucks from those areas will infiltrate the “controlled” area if the does within it are still emitting the right pheromones.
So it makes a boatload more sense to do the ovariectomy, because treated does will be ignored by the randy bucks, hence no chasing phase. The reduced number of estrous does will get a very high level of attention and will likely not need cycle again for another year.
Less chasing, fewer car wrecks.
And who knows? Maybe the subdominant bucks will decide to seek their genetic fortunes elsewhere.
But you also missed my point on the “humane” aspects of sterilization. It doesn’t matter how good the surgeon is. 100% of altered deer will face post-operative recovery in their natural habitat (or die trying), so unless there are plans afoot to provide a food source laced with oxycodone, they will recover without benefit of medication. And so yes, they WILL be in significant discomfort for at least a period of “a few days”.
100% of treated individuals, days of pain, guaranteed.
On a well-executed archery shot, they go down in well under a minute (and need I point out that bow-shot animals regularly shrug off a good hit???).
So a small percentage of deer will not only never know what hit them, they won’t even register that they’ve been hit. A very substantial percentage will experience pain upon being arrowed, but will end their suffering in no more time than it takes a dart to achieve its effect. Another increment will suffer for some hours, but the number that will be in pain for “a few days”?
I don’t know what that number is... but I do know it’s a damn sight less than 100%.
Also, there is a zero percent chance that a dead deer will live long enough to be killed or maimed by a vehicle.
It’s not as if ANY of these animals are going to die in their sleep.
I do not think I “missed your point on the ‘humane’ aspects of sterilization.” Recovering from a small, surgical incision with vas deferens or ovaries removed, wound cauterized, sutured, and antiseptic applied is a far, far cry from having an errant arrow pierce your rumen and cause you 36 hours to die. Fully agree that a well-executed arrow shot will put a deer down relatively humanely, but that is not what you were comparing to in your previous post: “If a bowhunter bungles a shot and the animal doesn’t expire for 24 hours, then its suffering is over in 24 hours.” This suggests a gut shot deer dying after 24 hours is more humane than one recovering from a sterile, surgical procedure. Again, I am not disagreeing that capture and surgery is all roses, but certainly more humane than a gut shot deer suffering and dying over 24 hour’s time. If you read the pre-print on ovariectomies, you will see they had 12 mortalities as the direct result of capture and handling of 570 captured animals (2% mortality rate.) Archery crippling/non-recovery rate is close to 50%, so you tell me which is more humane….
And I feel the need to point out that it is not possible for “bow-shot animals [to] regularly shrug off a good hit.” If it was a “good hit,” the animal would be dead. I don’t think you mean the animals are “shrugging off a good hit”, I think you mean that archers are “regularly” unable to recover all arrowed animals, even if they were a “good hit.”
I agree that lethal removal of animals is the best strategy, but sometimes, non-lethal means are necessary. You can accept this or continue to try to argue that gut-shooting a deer and having it expire after a day only to have the meat wasted is more humane than surgical sterilization and release. This argument will fall on deaf ears and does not help the reputation of hunting or hunters.
How long is WB going to be allowed to continue this process? Has anyone in the government asked the taxpayers what means that would want to employ to control the deer population? Like all government programs, they start off with a budget, and years later the program is out of control with higher and higher spending. I'd love to see a town hall where the taxpayers are told very clearly that the over $4mil spent so far will not result in less deer 5-10 years from now, they will need to spend more and more each year,.......and then see what they decide.
I guess maybe I’d like to see the citations on that number, but you know.... if that number is correct, it’s still just about HALF of 100%.
And FWIW, by “shrug off”, I was referring to the animals that may snap their head up in response to the sting of the arrow, but then carry on as if nothing unusual had happened. Until they tip over Dead.
Users of two blade COC heads report this happening on a regular basis. That’s not to suggest predominance or majority, but simply that it is not particularly remarkable when it does happen that way.
Not having had a vasectomy myself, I can’t comment on the healing time (though I have a few friends who remember it less than fondly). I just think its a bit naive to think that getting stitched up after you’ve been altered makes much of a difference in how much pain is experienced in the first 72 hours or so.
And still.... from a human conflict standpoint... During rut, a doe that gets chased throughout 3 estrus cycles is as likely to be associated with a deer-car incident as any three does that get chased once each.
It’s the cycling that triggers the chasing, so why not put an end to the cycling, rather than doubling or tripling it?
Vasectomy may be cheaper per animal, but that approach is Penny-wise and Pound foolish no matter how you slice it. Or snip it, as the case may be.
Kinda makes me wonder if surgical sterilization would receive less support if it were made abundantly clear that the surgeries were going to be performed on all female subjects.
Let’s just call it a hunch, but I would not be surprised in the least to learn that those opposed to lethal control skew toward female and politically more liberal.... and that their feelings around women’s issues and rights predispose them to be more accepting of sterilizing the males than the females, regardless of efficacy.
Just a WAG.
Dr. Williams's Link
And another:
“An article entitled “A Call for Accuracy” by Dwight Schuh states: Our sport can’t stand forever in the face of growing hatred. Archers must work to counteract that sentiment and build bowhunting in a positive light. The first step should be obvious. Don’t brag about hitting and losing animals. He goes on to say, there’s nothing honorable about hitting and losing an animal; it just means you screwed up. Don’t brag about it. Just shut up.” Kind of like saying a gut-shot deer dying over 24 hours is more humane than surgical sterilization... If we could ask a buck, “Hey, would you rather go to sleep for a couple hours, experience some discomfort for a few days, go on living while procreating regularly without the ability to reproduce or die over 24 hours from an arrow through your rumen?” What do you think his answer would be?
Now I gotcha on the “shrugging off.” Yes, on occasion, they don’t know they are hit until they are dead. Yes, agreed now that it has been better explained. But this is the exception, not the norm.
And now we are slowing slipping into anti-hunter mindset, by anthropomorphizing deer vasectomies. And agreed that cycling triggers chasing and potential DVCs. Again, male sterilization was attempted on Staten Island because of limited immigration potential and because it was such a large area; males were selected because they routinely comprise 40% of unhunted populations resulting in the need to capture significantly fewer animals as compared to the 60% female cohort. This makes a huge difference in terms of effort and cost when dealing with a land area of 60 square miles and deer herd contained therein.
Woah dude. Politicizing deer sterilization based on sex is a bit of a stretch. Clearly you are opposed to male sterilization, but this is the first attempt of its kind for all the reasons I have mentioned previously, and to see if it can work because no one else has tried it at that scale. Virtually all sterilization and immunocontraceptive studies the past 40 years have focused on females. Look no further than Fire Island, NY, the poster child for the Humane Society of the United States immunocontraceptive “research” on female deer from 1993-2009. It worked so well over the 27 years, the National Park Service hired White Buffalo in 2018 to begin lethal removal of animals. https://www.nps.gov/fiis/learn/nature/studying-white-tailed-deer.htm
