Deer hunting season opens today
By CHASE WRIGHT
Hour Staff Writer
“The idea that we’re going to shoot our way out of all of our problems, that ain’t going to happen,” said Priscilla Feral, president of the Darien-based nonprofit Friends of Animals.
Beginning today, the Devil’s Den Preserve in Weston will be closed to the public on select days while deer hunting season gets under way statewide.
The Nature Conservancy has been coordinating the Devil’s Den deer cull since 2001 in an effort to thin the animal population and protect the ecological habitat of the 1,756-acre preserve.
“The basic issues are the impact that deer have on our ecosystem,” said Howard Kilapatrick, wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The high density of deer in Connecticut has been associated with an increased incidence of deer-vehicle accidents and Lyme disease cases, he said.
When the state began controlling its deer population in earnest 10 years ago, deer-vehicle accidents had peaked at about 3,000. Kilapatrick said the number of accidents involving deer has dropped by more than a third to about 2,000 collisions in 2010.
The Nature Conservancy says an overabundance of deer in southwestern Connecticut has contributed to the gradual loss of native flowering plants and tree species, which are unable to regenerate because the animals favor the acorns and samplings.
But animal advocacy groups claim that concerns propagated by land conservationists are merely designed to demonize the innocent animals.
“The idea that we’re going to shoot our way out of all of our problems, that ain’t going to happen,” said Priscilla Feral, president of the Darien-based nonprofit Friends of Animals.
Feral, a Rowayton resident, has been among the most vocal animal advocates in the area. Each year, her agency organizes protests and encourages boycotting of the Conservancy and the Darien Land Trust, which oversees the limited deer culling in Selleck’s Woods.
“I think it’s a vulgarity that really keeps me up at night,” Feral said of deer population management. “That I live next door to where this goes on infuriates me.”
Controlled deer hunting began at Selleck’s Woods last week and continues until Dec. 9, or until a total of nine animals have been tagged.
The Nature Conservancy will close the trails at Devil’s Den Preserve to the public Nov. 17 - 18; Nov. 22 - 24; Nov. 29 - Dec. 2; and Dec. 6 - 7.
Inclement weather is expected to keep turnout low on the opening day of shotgun and rifle season, Kilapatrick said.
Permitted shotgun and rifle shooting continues for three weeks, until the beginning of muzzle loader season, which ends the annual hunting season at the end of December. Archery hunting also begins Thursday and runs through the end of January.
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19 Comments
On November 17, 2010, JoAnne wrote:
Michigan has seasons , bow, firearm, muszzle loader almost 6 months out of the year,plus ban on feeding in winter months. reminds me of wiping out the Buffalo.
On November 17, 2010, In A Gadda Da Vegan wrote:
Ever notice that they can’t just say KILL? Oh no, goodness no they are “thinning” the herd. That’s a relief. The DNR can’t be too rich, and the herds can’t be too thin.
On November 17, 2010, rich peppin wrote:
The Nature Conservancy is just one group of people who advocate killing. Here in Maryland (I think I sent you the announcement) the government encourages it. The deer don’t have a chance!
Rich
On November 17, 2010, Atia wrote:
Nature Conservancy, indeed! Look what they’ve done in Hawaii for years - snaring wild pigs and letting them die cruel and agonizingly slow deaths….
However, there’s no danger in having deer hunted to extinction! State wildlife agencies “manage” wildlife, making absolutely sure that however many deer hunters murder will replenish by the next hunting season through compensatory rebound! They wouldn’t cut off their noses to spite their faces and lose their only clients that provide their salaries.
No matter how many they kill, which is obvious from data in all CT zones, deer numbers never really go down - it’s by design - not coincidence.
That’s why there’s such a push by a few big mouths in Westport to overturn the no-hunting ordinance. Westport is a thorn in the DEPs side side because it is proof that no hunting creates a low and stable deer herd.
The only reason for those special hunts is to supply their clients with more and easily obtainable deer to kill - more hunting opportunities, that’s IT!
Hunters are becomign so lazy (I suggest reading some of their blogs) that if they have to stalk deer, they’re not happy - they want plenty of deer to walk right up to their baited tree stands..real sportsmanship!
On November 17, 2010, rich peppin wrote:
It is nice to read these comments but I fear we are talking to ourselves in this forum. I tried to get Howard County, Maryland to stop the “Wounded Warrior Deer Hunt” (a hunt for diabled vets, i suppose) and was met with the idea we owe the hunt to our “injured boys.” Ye gads.
Somehow we cannot effect change and we watch, and also comment, as animals are killed for food and “sport.”
On November 17, 2010, Laura Youpa wrote:
Well folks… Here we go again. You are all against hunting deer, RIGHT?? I can just imagine what you would say when you come across the flowers you painstakingly just planted, paid ALOT of money on, ripped right out of their spots and pots. Chewed up and left there to die. OR your precious flowering shrubs you spent alot of money and time on, chewed down to their roots in the winter, because there are too many deer not enough food in your area, dead!!! You’ll be standing there swearing and stomping your feet like little babies,”GOD D*** DEER!!!!”” S.O.B.!!!” “S**T!!!” Now you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN!!! How many of you are going to go deep in the woods, carrying bales of hay, special feed or water, during the freezing cold, in blizzard conditions or ice storms. Every day, even when you are sick, to make sure they eat. ONCE you start YOU have to keep it up!!!! Its like being a farmer who HAS to go feed his animals, COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, they have to be taken care of because they are his livelyhood!!! The herds have to be kept under control, from starving themselves out, becoming sick and injured OR being hit by cars and causing problems that way. THINK PEOPLE!!! Birth control is a joke!! Thats one way to cause the species to become extinct!!!
On November 17, 2010, Lee Hall, Friends of Animals wrote:
Laura, are you under the impression Friends of Animals promotes birth control for free-living animals including deer? We do not promote it. And many of us live in the vicinity of Valley Forge Park and can assure you we do not stomp our feet like little babies because deer are eating plants.
The remainder of what you’ve written is difficult to understand, with its chaotic punctuation.
On November 18, 2010, Dustin Rhodes, Friends of Animals wrote:
Hi Laura,
I think you’ve got us all wrong if you think any of us here equate a flower with that of the life of a deer. I’d rather have my plants eaten any day. Better yet, if I lived in an area where there are lots of deer, and if my landscaping were super important, maybe I’d try planting something deer didn’t like to eat. Just a suggestion.
We are advocating for leaving the deer be, not playing god or mad scientist. Deer and other free-living animals have the ability to manage their own populations—so long as humans stop interfering. We are the ones throwing nature out of balance. We will not be able to shoot and kill our way out of this situation or any other where populations of free-living animals are concerned.
If you’d like, we’d be happy to send you a free copy of our booklet, “Hunting: An Act Against Nature.” I think you’d find it illuminating.
On November 18, 2010, Lidia Belknap wrote:
WE SHOULD START RETURNING THEM, WHAT WE TOOK FROM THEM, - NOT ADVOCATE FOR TAKING EVEN MORE.
I think that we should not be part of the culture, which causes the problems (by development of the land, predator control for agribusiness, etc.) and then points at the animals: “look, they are the problem: there are too many of them, if we don’t control them, the problem will become even worse, and in addition they will leave other species without food.”
It is us, who took their land, destroyed their food sources, destroyed their natural shelters.., who brought imbalance into nature. It is not the animals, who is the problem.
If we start asking to control them “humanely” - we will accept the statement, that the animals are the problem. And we will wipe out one specie after another by “controlling” them, as that part of the culture, which is really responsible for the problems, wants us to believe, that it is necessary to control them (not ourselves).
Plus very likely that it is the hunters, who mostly want to play conservationists, and it is in their interest to create a concern, that animals are the problem. If if agree with that by elaborating the idea of control, asking for different method, we will give the idea of “animals are the problem” green light.
I think more likely:
1. they will still shoot the animals -not spend money on birth control (which, as I read, is very hurting in cases of using it on wild life), and
2. we will be several steps back in our work towards animals rights. We loose twice. Actually the animals will loose twice.
Just like with the welfare reforms, many of us want full liberation, but the industry fooled us and directed us to fight for improvement of conditions, which on one hand is accepting of the animal exploitation and on the other hand is something we can never achieve: the reason that the conditions are so bad is that there is a huge demand on animal products and we help it to become even bigger, by comforting the consumers.
I am very grateful to those, who oppose control of wildlife, and helped me to see it. I felt this way deep in my heart before, but I was acting like it was common around: I used to demand humane control instead of traps and shooting.
Wild animals are there on their own, struggling to survive, we can’t interfere more. We have to change our consumerism and try to return, what we took from them - not to take even more. We shouldn’t interfere.
I think, it is different with the pets and other animals, which we breed for our own reasons. We interfered with wild animals long time ago, domesticated some species, made them dependent on us, bred them in that direction. They are totally vulnerable in our human dominated world. With these animals we should advocate birth control, since these animals can’t survive without us: they depend on us for food, shelter, medical care… They are helpless in our world. We should reduce their population to 0, come back to the point when all the animals were free, independent and lived in their natural conditions, where they can find their natural food, shelter, cure themselves, have off springs and feed them…
On November 26, 2010, Tono Fonseca wrote:
“But animal advocacy groups claim that concerns propagated by land conservationists are merely designed to demonize the innocent animals.”
Oh Lord, is there a phobia of killing?
When are vegans going to understand that death is a part of life? Exploding deer populations can wreak havoc on both nature and on human civilisation. Stop anthropomorphising animals and wake up to the facts of what they will do if their population grows too high: they will drive down the numbers of other herbivorous animals by taking away their food, and eventually once they overbreed themselves, a huge population drop will follow, because there won’t be enough food for pregnant deer.
On November 28, 2010, Deej wrote:
There goes the dep and front paging the hunting of deer, they do this every year to get people to hunt deer. Its all BS. If you go on the dep site it warns of disease in deer so how can these so called Hunters or worse say we kill and eat the meat. Why do I see killed deer and they were not hit by cars!!!! Hunting is a trophy sport, “its cruelty”. If they used birth control it would take away the hunters and money for the state. So go figure. Its mean and its for the people who enjoy taking away the lives of innocent animals.. Using attractants and feed to attract them and then kill them is not hunting. Just shows the type of people that hunt and I will not say more!!
Bugs eat flowers rabbits and woodchucks eat flowers so whats next, kill them. Its all a vicious circle and its all dirty politics. As you notice the news times and the connecticut post and who knows what other newspapers put the deer hunting articles in every year. Though they seem a tad late this year. Guess hunting revenue is down so they need to advertise!!!!
On March 3, 2011, Jayson Zorda wrote:
I take it you dont eat meat or plants. How do you survive. Everthing has a life and purpose, who is to say a plant has a life not as important than a animal, they are living to. So you better come up with a answer to surviving that doesnt involve eating living things.
You are a hunter you just dont want to admit it. Dont give me a answer like the deer walk and breath and they are cute so they should live, god made animals for a reason and i think we all know what for. you hire people to do your killing every time you pay for food, and complain about the people who do it for them selves. How much money do you put in to keeping animals healthy, to rebuild habitat that you take away when you build your homes iam guessing nothing hunters do more to feed the hungry and help people in need and donate there time to help all wildlife while keeping a health balance then you ever would. So i would recomend finding a differant way of living that doesnt involve killing any living thing including plants. If you do that feel to preech. And remember when you are driving in your car you are killing living things just about every day just no one notices it was you.
On March 3, 2011, Dustin Rhodes, Friends of Animals wrote:
Ahhh, Jayson. Where to begin?
Yes, I eat plants. And, no, I don’t believe that plants and animals are equals in terms of sentience including the ability to experience pain, and I am 99.9% certain plants don’t possess any sort of self awareness. But let’s make the ludicrous case that they did: I still would not eat animals. Non-human animals already live off of plants, and to eat the animals, by your argument, involves twice the amount of killing.
But just to repeat: I think that whole argument that “plants are conscious, too!” is a load of you-know-what.
I am always amazed when people claim to know the point of human existence. I don’t. However, I am confident that the point is not to cause endless suffering and destruction.
Hunters aren’t some bunch of altruistic helpers saving the world. Please. They are not stewards of nature. They kill and destroy, and it’s out of pleasure — regardless of the spin. Hunters also help throw nature and the process of natural selection out of balance; science is proving this to be true, as hunters seek out the “best” among the species they intend to kill — which throws the process by which animals adapt and evolve completely out of whack.
Hunters need to learn to be honest with themselves (forget about our opinions): hunting is sadistic, ethically repellent and downright unkind. Spare me your save-the-world rhetoric.
On March 3, 2011, Ellie Maldonado wrote:
Agreed, Dustin. It’s time for hunters to stop hiding behind their myth that nonhuman animals need to be killed. If they’re honest with themselves, I think they will admit that hunting causes compensatory rebound, and that free-living animals can control their own numbers in relation to available food — without any interference from us.
On December 5, 2011, John wrote:
Dustin.
Why would hunters want to destroy the very thing that they appreciate? Hunters are not death mongers that get ultimate pleasure from taking an animal’s life and to sum it up like that would be an utter insulting lie. Most hunters have a very deep appreciation, love, and unwavering respect for wildlife and the habitat that they call home. How can you, not being a true hunter, presume that hunting is “an act against nature” and continue to accuse hunters of killing and destroying out of pleasure. That is uproarious, so I would like to invite you to come share in a hunt with myself and friends to see that hunting actually is not this absurd facade you believe it to be.
-John
On December 5, 2011, Lee Hall, Friends of Animals wrote:
Jay Tutchton, who at one time would have shared a hunt with you, wrote this - an excerpt from ON THEIR OWN TERMS: BRINGING ANIMAL-RIGHTS ADVOCACY DOWN TO EARTH (book available for purchase through this site).
[QUOTE FROM JAY TUTCHTON:]It was the wisdom of my children that pulled me around and reminded me what I had forgotten and overlooked in my philosophy. Each in their own way; my two sons cried at the “game processing” butcher because the elk, hanging on hooks, gutted and with their hides removed, were “naked” and missing their heads. They remarked, “Dad, this is really sad,” as they examined the beautiful tail feathers of a bunch of pheasants I was preparing to cook…Still, I thought, they were just too young to understand.
It was my daughter who broke me. I had taken her to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the elk bugling in the fall. We spotted a herd from the jeep. She knew I hunted elk and tried to feed them to her by hiding them in spaghetti sauce and sausages. As I pulled her out of her car seat to get a better look at the herd, she said, simply and defiantly, “Daddy, if you are going to hurt the elks, I am not getting out of this car.” I tried to explain that I wasn’t going to hurt them today, that I really loved the elk, that I spent my days and nights and weekends filing all sorts of lawsuits to protect elk and the wildlands they needed to survive. She began to cry and asked, “Daddy, why? Why do you hate the elks?”
By then in my legal career, I had advised countless law students, struggling over what do with their lives and their powerful new degrees, to follow a guide I had used: “Try to explain your job to a child and see if they understand.” It was a simple test to determine if you were being true to the ideals that had led you to law school. It was my own test. And I was failing it.
I stopped hunting. By my own standard, it followed that I should stop eating meat. But for a time, I made exceptions. I ate meat when friends cooked and I didn’t want to give insult. Finally, when some friends dragged me to a famous barbeque shack in Kansas City, surrounded by a gluttonous orgy of meat eating, I became physically sick looking at the flesh of unknown type and origin on my plate. I stopped eating meat completely. Dairy products and eggs continued to be part of my diet—largely because I was an uncreative, lazy cook. I could have used the vegan cookbook, Dining With Friends, Lee co-authored with Priscilla Feral, but I hadn’t met them yet.
I did know some vegans, friends I had represented in environmental lawsuits. They were delightful, caring, thoughtful, people. They invited me to their tables. I began to read books they recommended. We talked about ethics, health, the “carbon footprint” of meat-eating and the effects of animal agribusiness on the environment, the free-living wildlife that we loved and the endangered species that we fought to save with legal protection. Their vegan lifestyle made sense to me and I joined them.
On December 5, 2011, John wrote:
One man’s story still does not address why you can justify that hunters kill and destroy for pure pleasure. How can you assume that. Even Jay Tutchton said he had respect for the wildlife, and its not that hunters believe that “non-humans NEED to be killed” it is that they can be used for food and clothing. I know that I will not change your mind, nor will you ever change mine..I just want to get a little understanding from both sides.
FoA comments:
None of the animals killed “NEED” to be used for either food or clothing so it is perplexing why hunters kill them if not for pleasure and enjoyment — what other reason is left?
And you are wrong. Most animal activists have changed their minds. They were brought up in the same “humans are superior to all animals” culture that you were. But they were able to change their minds when they realized they were wrong. Agreed, you cannot change yours.
On December 24, 2011, John wrote:
I hope that you have taken into account that the crops grown for vegan and non-vegan diets are also taking over animal habitat and forcing animals’ patterns to change more than hunting makes them. We all, by living on this planet, are ultimately changing or effecting something in nature and one group of people cannot act like or put upon another group that they do not or do negatively affect an animal in some way. If you really want to help animals put your budget toward abused/abandoned/shelter animals that I, along with a majority of the people on this earth, have sympathy for and believe they need to be helped.
FoA comments:
Animal agriculture is far more disruptive than vegan agriculture is to the habitat of animals. Much more land and water is needed to raise “livestock.” So if you are encouraging us to be vegan, we already are. And as it is possible to be a vegan without any sacrifice, how does anyone justify eating animals?
Friends of Animals has operated a low-cost nationwide spay/neuter program for dogs and cats since its founding in 1957.
On December 28, 2011, John wrote:
Let us not only speak about animal agriculture; I am talking about hunting in regards to disruption and the fact that you do, by consuming/using any kind of grain or other agricultural product, disrupt animals.
FoA comments:
Yes, growing grain to feed cattle is disruptive to the natural habitat of other animals. It is also unnecessary. No one needs to eat meat, but humans need to eat and a vegan diet is the least disruptive and most respectful, healthy, environment-friendly diet there is.