What is it with yellow pine?

[d.kessell]

Not so, Scott. I did not say (with what must be Homer Simpson's voice) "four legs good. . . ." Nor do I believe this rediculous reductionism.

At least George (above) presents logical argument, but I think his points only support my thesis: we have a deer (sub. any critter here) so-called "overpopulation" because of human urban practices (not the least of which is our failure to see the bigger picture).

Deer do not eat just grass--around here they are quite fond of corn, the occasional acorn, tender tree branches, lots of things that grow in the margins. As humans alter the environment, urbanizing what were once "rural" areas, we create more margins, "find" more deer, and experience more human/deer encounters. This is not a good or a bad thing itself. It does illustrate the ways we are changing the world. George's reasoning leaves out the other factors in population dynamics, food availability being only one. True, deer ('coon, 'possum) seem to have found abundant forage in urbanizing areas; other critters do not fair so well.

nospam seems to think (?) the answer to the problem is "shoot first", or "shoot the messenger". My point is that our acknowledged "deer trouble" isn't specific to deer. It bespeaks a bigger problem, and focusing on just one aspect of it (deer populations/hunting) is myopic and stupid. I would certainly welcome more climax forests, as this would no doubt address these bigger-picture issues.

Yes, my canary is singing, George, but not the song you think I've heard. It isn't singing about "lack"--that isn't part of my argument. It is singing about the price of certain kinds of "abundance".

Dan

[mel]

Statements like "the overall livability of our world is in decline" and "our failure to see the bigger picture" followed by "focusing on just one aspect of it ... is myopic and stupid" really get under my skin.

It is in itself arrogant, and to use your word.... myopic. The U.S. has 2.3 billion acres of land. However, 375 million acres are in Alaska. The land area of the lower 48 states is approximately 1.9 billion acres. To put things in perspective, keep in mind that California is 103 million acres, Montana 94 million acres, Oregon 60 million acres and Maine 20 million acres.Despite all the hand wringing over sprawl and urbanization, only 66 million acres are considered developed lands. This amounts to 3 percent of the land area in the U.S.

Rural Residential Land-This category comprises nearly all sprawl and subdivisions along with farmhouses scattered across the country The total acreage for rural residential is 73 million acres. Of this total, 44 million acres are lots of 10 or more acres.

Developed and rural residential make up 139 million acres, or 6.1 percent of total land area in the U.S. This amount of land is not insignificant until you consider that we planted more than 80 million acres of feeder corn and another 75 million acres of soybeans (95 percent of which are consumed by livestock, not tofu eaters) last year alone. These two crops affect more of the land area of the U.S. than all the urbanization, rural residential, highways, railroads, commercial centers, malls, industrial parks and golf courses combined.

Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are primarily used to feed livestock.

The amount of land used to produce all vegetables in the U.S. is less than 3 million acres.

Range and Pasture Land- Some 788 million acres, or 41.4 percent of the U. S. excluding Alaska, are grazed by livestock. This is an area the size of 8.3 states the size of Montana. Grazed lands include rangeland, pasture and cropland pasture. More than 309 million acres of federal, state and other public lands are grazed by domestic livestock. Another 140 million acres are forested lands that are grazed.

Forest Land- Forest lands comprise 747 million acres. Of these lands, some

501 million acres are primarily forest (minus lands used for grazed forest and other special categories).

The USDA report concludes that urbanization and rural residences (subdivisions) "do not threaten the U.S. cropland base or the level of agricultural production." This does not mean sprawl doesn't have impacts where it occurs. But the notion that sprawl is the greatest threat to biodiversity is absolutely false.

[George]

Which is why my garden is so attractive that I have to have that electrified fence around it.

Yep, crop and grazing improvements make good deer grub, though, strangely, they didn't graze the Sudan grass on the north forty much at all.

[d.kessell]

Mel: I did not say "sprawl is the greatest threat to biodiversity. . . ." I did say, relative to the perceived deer population "explosion", it is indicative of the consequences of human/urban development. No great leap to conclusions here.

For that matter, to take up your well-enumerated points, our industrial farming is hardly a boon to biodiversity. Given that so many more acres of land are devoted to this kind of urbanized development (and modern industial agriculture is not a "rural" enterprise in anything other than location) I would say your logic only reinforces my argument.

In that regard, practices on the mechanized, mega-acre food factories are more responsible for the "urbanization" of the countryside than is development sprawl. We just see the effects on the edges of our towns and cities--i.e. deer as pests. (Urban hunters are only asking to also regard them as a protein source, thus killing the "proverbial" two birds.) Either way, we are consuming diversity at an increasing rate (killing, in the process, the "literal" two birds). I know of no reason to consider this is a good trend.

Dan

[fredfighter]

urbanization,

Surely that depends on how you define 'developed'. Farmland has been developed for farming, pastureland for grazing, and large areas have been developed for silviculture (relevant to this ng).

consumed by

residential,

See?

ISTR that we import a lot of fruit and vegetables too.

See? Developed for grazing.

Does that include land developed for silviculture?

The U.S cropland base and agricultural production do not contribute to biodiversity. They reduce it.

Hey, he have to eat, we need fibers, we need wood and so on. I'm not saying that developement is all or even primarily bad. But let's be honest with ourselves and not pretend that a soybean field or a tree farm is biodiverse, OK? That would be like claiming farmed salmon to be indicative of a healthy riparian environment.

[mel]

You're right. What you said was, to paraphrase, human expansion=wiped out competative species=ultimate loss of world livability.

That is provided you are comfortable with making conclusions based on limited perception. The keyword here is perceived. It's not like deer are running rampant through the streets of the major metropolitan areas of our nation. What is actually happening is more and more people are moving to and expanding the suburbanized areas thus increasing the likelyhood of crossing the paths with wildlife. However, like I previously stated... "urbanized" areas only accounts for a little over 6 percent of the total area of land. Before we can continue we must come to an agreement on the definition of "urbanize".

Main Entry: ur·ban·ize Pronunciation: '&r-b&-"nIz Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): -ized; -iz·ing

1 : to cause to take on urban characteristics

Main Entry: ur·ban Pronunciation: '&r-b&n Function: adjective Etymology: Latin urbanus, from urbs city : of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city

Once again, refer to above definition. Farmer Bob living in an 1800 sq ft house sitting on 2000 acres hardly constitutes a city. As far as your arguement goes, you maintain that human/urban developement has created an imbalance resulting in an "explosion" in the deer population. I disagree. I'm free to do so chiefly due to the fact this is all suppostion in the first place. I maintain that increased occupancy in once rural areas has simply increased the likelyhood of deer/human encounters. I'll even conceed that a very very small temporary imbalance may be occurring but will eventually correct itself.... as it always has.

The point of my previous post was to illustrate these facts- 3% urban (city) + 3.1% rural residential = 6.1% That leaves 93.9% of total land area that isn't considered developed (i.e. built uponK9=C)*R![L8J&4S.T4`.P`` ` end

[Duane Bozarth]

mel wrote: ...

But there's no doubt (simply check the game commission statistics for almost any state) that the total numbers of deer are up---well up in many places, owing for at least a major extent, to the combination of ready food supply and no or very limited predatory pressures. Some areas literally "run over" even well inside very well developed areas.

[mel]

Once again Duane it's a matter of perspective. Game commission statistics are gathered from known numbers of "harvested" deer. It's physically impossible to actually count the deer. These statistics are skewed based on a limited amount of information. Taking into account the increasing popularity of the sport, surely you can see how an increased "harvest" can be misconstrued as an increase in overall population. Furthermore, game management for the sole purpose of increasing deer population by land owners who depend on the income from deer leases can also contribute to this.

However, we are not simply discussing an increase in the overall population of game. Intentional or unintentional. We are discussing the plausibility of an "explosion" of epic proportions that is indicative of a decline in the livability of our world. In essence.... a plague of deer.

You can argue this from whatever perspective you wish. You can say an increase in the deer population means we are doing something wrong.... or you can say the increase means we are doing something right. Until I see the browse lines in all the wooded areas at 6 feet I don't intend to be too concerned.

[d.kessell]

Mel: read my posts again--I do not posit an "actual" explosion in deer populations due to

[Dave Balderstone]

What about moose explosions?

djb

[d.kessell]

Mel says: "We are discussing the plausibility of an 'explosion' of epic proportions that is indicative of a decline in the livability of our world."

Read my posts again--I am not arguing that deer populations have exploded. I have said that the major reason for any increase, if there is one, is likely the activity of our species, to wit, "urbanization", and that this activity does reduce the livability of our planet. I do not limit the term "urban" to what occures in cities. Rather, it is the wide range of human activities which, obviously and subtly, change natural environments for our benefit, and which, in this age, are on the "urban" end of the continuum (with the possible exception of those quiet, tail-less neanders known to lurk here-abouts.)

I include in this category all industrial processes, and specifically those of industrial agriculture, practiced on 349 million acres (that's about 18% of the lower 48, BTW, if I use the figures you provided). I include agriculture because we seem to have a terribly difficult time thinking of farming as a industrial process when, in all likelihood, your hypothetical farmer living in his hypothetical 1800 s.f. probably tills, chemically treats, and otherwise manipulates better than 2000 acres of cropland (and in some parts of the country, many thousands more), or oversees the production and feeding of thousands of head of cattle/hogs/chickens--a scale of activity far beyond what is traditionally thought of as "rural". Add to this 18% the additional acreage affected by our use of that developed (built-upon?) 6% (effluent, erosion, pollution, habitat disruption, etc.), and it's fair to say we have a direct impact on better than 25% of the land mass (and we haven't even begun to talk about air or water). The world is not so simple that the consequences of our actions are confined to the merely

6% of "built" environment.

The fact that our activities are beneficial to a few species besides our own does not mean we should ignore the consequences to the rest. While our "development" may contribute to the increased viability (for how long is yet unknown) of some species--deer--it is known to be profoundly detrimental to very many more. This attitude of complacency is what I call myopia. No credible source denies the decline and extinction of species now occuring on the earth is due in large part to human activity; this is no reason for celebration.

Dan

[George]

Deer kill moose, too. Our population is greatly affected with brainworm, a parasite which does not kill deer. As the core population was transplanted from Canada, we often blame the DNR for not picking Finnish moose, where _brain_ worm would be no problem...

[George]

One can only suppose you and your like would have killed the first iguana to haul up on the Galapagos.

[Duane Bozarth]

[e-mail] wrote: ...

In most of that tilled acreage, the only real difference is that the same acreage is now farmed by fewer individuals, not that the acreage itself wasn't farmed. Tillage practices such as low- and no-till are indeed much more prevalent and disturb the soil far less than conventional tillage of even 20 years ago. In that sense it is, indeed, more "rural" than before. W/ the advent of fairly sizable acreages devoted to the Conservation Reserve, quite significant areas are, in fact, now back into near pre-farming condition and forbs and other native species are returning. There are, of course, exotics in both flora and fauna that are unavoidable given imports over the years...

[Duane Bozarth]

At least here, game population statistics are developed from far more than just harvest counts and include detailed statistical sampling counts. These are done as part of the management of all game species for both control and to develop understanding of needs for maintaining stable populations. In some instances, such as deer, its primarily a control issue. In others such as the greater prairie chicken, it's a development/retention issue.

There are a few individual land owners who "farm" deer for hunting purposes, but they're the minority by far...the revenue lost to damage caused to crops by excessive numbers far outweighs the hunting revenue (again, at least here where it is a largely agricultural-based economy--forested areas in the farther north/east that are non-farming may well be biased the other way).

When writing the previous, I was thinking of areas in TN/VA where I was that indeed, the forage depredation in areas of Lynchburg was really nearly to the point you describe. Oak Ridge, TN, is another area which owing to the large DOE reservation w/ no hunting for a long time the numbers had simply gotten out of hand.

The point I was making was simply that w/ areas where predators are removed and other means for harvesting aren't there, the numbers rise to the point of being far greater than they would be for the same area otherwise. This is an imbalance. Is it an indication of greater or lesser "livability", whatever that is, I don't know. I guess that depends on whether you're a deer or a displaced predator.

[mel]

Dan wrote-

confined to the merely 6% of "built" environment.

Yet you insinuate it is simple enough to be unable to withstand the consequences of our actions... interesting. Do you know that Mount St. Helens emitted more pollutants in a single day of eruption than all the vehicles in the entire state of California did in 2000 which incidentally was the highest known year for emissions for that state?

extinction of species now occurring on the earth is due in large part to human activity; this is no reason for celebration.

Nor is there a credible source that proves it to be so. This whole notion that somehow we are the alien species and not a legitimate part of the natural order of things is ludicrous. Species became extinct before we became "industrialized" and at what rate we simply do not know. Nor do we have a firm grasp on the current rate.

Let's look at your argument for a moment and try to see "The Big Picture".

You see an increase in the deer population. You've stated that you suspect it was due to the decline of a competing species, a herbivore, due to the actions of man. You've stated it points to the general decline in the livability of our world.

What I see is this... if in fact there is an increase in the deer population isn't that "nature" correcting the imbalance? Wouldn't the loss of a major competing species that kept the vegetation in check without any sort of correction in itself be considerably more damaging? Doesn't the very correction of increased deer population prove that nature can and will mend itself?

[Doug Winterburn]

Since 99.9% of all species have gone extinct before man came along, it's hard to understand how we could compete with nature in this regard.

- Doug

[Silvan]

One thing I didn't see you mention, which piqued my curiosity, is what percentage of all this land is actually arable in the first place. If a jillion million acres aren't urbanized and they aren't in use for farming or grazing, etc., that doesn't mean they're wide open habitat for, say, deer.

I'd say, in fact, looking at the specific question of deer, that you just about have to limit your range of possible habitats to the places where trees would be growing if people weren't there. I don't think deer used to roam the great plains, did they? I don't think they used to live in the Mojave. Don't think, but don't really know. I'm asking a question, not making a statement here. It just seems that analysis isn't taking into account the vast tracts of land out west that aren't very liveable, which are bound to eat up a noteworthy portion of the available area for all of the endeavors enumerated as uses for land.

[fredfighter]

Its not hard at all if you understand the concept of rate.

Nor is it hard to understand that we can drastically reduce that rate over the next century or so, with virtually no negative long-term impact on human society.

Interesting.

[mel]

"Arable" means fit for cultivation and is around 19%. Non-arable lands would include deserts, forests, swamplands etc. Most of this habitat is perfectly capable of sustaining a deer population. Blacktail or Mule deer actually prefer the arid climate found in the western states including the desert.