Hunting

Hunting, one of the oldest activities known to man, is being debated by two extremely strong-willed sides. The subject of deer hunting is one topic on which many people have strong emotional opinions either for or against. Some redneck people feel that “my pa hunted and taught me that if I can kill it, I can eat it”. While the tree huggers feel that “it is awful because you’re killing Bambi”. Although both are entitled to their own opinion, neither of these reasons comes across as noteworthy enough for a solid case. Do not get me wrong, I am very passionate about the thrills of hunting and will get to that later, but the examples that are most significant to look over are the facts of deer hunting. These imperative facts include the basic ecological population biology and the economic revenues of deer hunting. With all emotional views aside for now, try to look at deer hunting for what it is. It is just a way of leveling out the deer population in place of natural predators. Wolves and mountain lions, the only two true natural predators of adult deer, were basically eradicated from the South-East United States as soon as man settled. This being the case, the only wild animals that pose any sort of threat to deer are coyotes and bobcats, and they are only threatening for a 3-4 month period in young fawns lives. That leaves it up to the humans to keep the populations in balance.
If humans did not balance out the deer population, it would be absolutely devastating to the group as a whole. Each ecosystem has a limit to how many organisms of a specific species it can hold. This maximum amount is called the carrying capacity. If the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is surpassed, it is utterly detrimental to the population. This is called overpopulation. Usually, though, the prey species has a predator species to keep the amount in check. This means that the quantity of organisms increases very rapidly until reaching the carrying capacity, and then it levels out. On