Foresters of Mt.
Vista Mountain Vista Governors School
11/12/2008
12:40:00 PM
The foresters as a stakeholder group are quite
important, as they care for the forest
environment in which deer live. This stakeholder
group is affected by environmental
problems, such as the overpopulation of the deer
species, through the eating and
destruction of the forest ecosystem by the deer.
This in turn affects the soil, as well as
the water systems in the forest, which then goes on
to affect the other ecosystems that
water system passes through. The foresters are
directly affected by the overgrazing of
the deer in that it causes destruction to the native
plant species that the foresters are
trying to preserve, and so makes their job that much
more difficult.
There are many solutions to the overpopulation
problem, including reintroduction of
natural predators and convincing more people to hunt
deer, which can be subdivided into
two categories: hunters and specialist programs.
These specialist programs include such
groups as Dr. Anthony DeNicola’s hunting group and
local sharp shooting programs. Dr.
DeNicola founded a group to hunt deer, and bag every
bit of it, and turned it into a venture
for charity, where he donates all the venison to
foundations for charity. Sharp shooting
groups in Pennsylvania train by hunting the deer in
the local areas and thereby lowering the
population somewhat. Another solution has been
proposed by state Senator Hubert Houser
(R) of Iowa. He believes that Iowa should fix its
deer overpopulation problem by feeding
ground venison to inmates at prisons around the
state. In order to accomplish this, more
hunters would be encouraged to donate some of their
kills to the prisons, and from this ten
thousand more deer tags would be issued in Iowa.
One other solution is to set up deer
exclusion areas, as can be seen at Birmingham
University, where the deer eat 99% of the
wildflowers and halt forest regeneration.
All of these solutions affect the foresters.
The hunting/specialist groups and Sen.
Houser’s solution all reduce the number of deer
populating an area, which is an immediate
result. Over time, however, these solutions
probably won’t last because of our tendency to
be lazy and lack of desire to go out and have to do
something. The deer exclusion areas
could work over long term, but it would only leave
pockets of forest and vegetation intact
instead of entire ecosystems. The most favorable
solution to the foresters is the
reintroduction of natural predators into the
ecosystem. These predators include gray
wolves and cougars (pumas). This might not show an
immediate result, but this
reintroduction would see improvements in all aspects
of the ecosystem, and this is
evidenced in Yellowstone National Park, where the
reintroduction of the gray wolf has seen
a decline in elk population, which had been
overgrazing the cottonwood trees and causing a
major decline in sapling growth. The decrease of
the elk population allowed for the
saplings to mature, and with that maturity, the
saplings prevented runoff, impacting the
water system greatly for the better. Some may say
that this reintroduction of natural
predators, especially wolves, would result in more
attacks by these animals on the human
population. This is highly unlikely, as there have
only been 27 attacks on humans in the
1900’s, and up to 2006, only 3 attacks have been
fatal, due to injuries inflicted by rabid
wolves. Cougars are solitary creatures by nature,
and would rarely approach areas of
extensive human development, and thereby attacks
would be rare occurrences. Thus, the
reintroduction of the natural predators is the most
favorable way by the foresters to
regulate the rising deer population and growth.
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