Hunting season is here and so is peta (Gray, Eastport: subdivision, to live in)

[stanman13]

Here in Michigan we call 'em Spiny-Headed Wood Rats. They are so overpopulated that they are dying of all sorts of illnesses, mainly related to too many deer being in too close proximity. What's PETA got to say aboutthat, eh? They'd probably want us to bring in more wolves. But the wolf population in the UP is getting too high, as well. They're having increased wolf-human interaction. The wolves will always lose that game.

Is that hunting license good in Michigan, too? Please?

[RANGER.101ST]

Is that hunting license good in Michigan, too? Please?[/

i dont see why not but you will have to ask Bydand.im sure we can work something out like a state to state charter.

[broadbill]

Originally Posted by SportFury59

Those deer are deadly.

Are you serious????

[mollysmiles]

Originally Posted by broadbill

Are you serious????

yes! You've never been to Maine have you?

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by broadbill

Are you serious????

Here within my township, twice I have stopped for beaver.

Beaver will cut down a tree, and then drag it across the road toward water.

So as a driver you are faced with a 30 pound animal [vehicle headlight height] and a tree blocking the road.

Hit that with a compact sedan and your going to do some damage [if you live].

I have gotten out, lifted one end of the log, carried it across the road.

Both times the beaver have not paid any attention to me, they stay focused on their task of dragging their end of the log toward water.

I have seen many deer [usually with fawn] crossing the road, or grazing in the ditch of the road.

I routinely slow down as flocks of turkey cross the road.

I have seen a few moose on the pavement.

Once a 'baby' moose, was on the shoulder of the pavement and ran alongside of my car pacing me for 100 yards, before it went into the forest. [It is weird to consider anything a 'baby' when it is as tall as your car, I know that it was a baby moose, as before it began pacing my car, it had been standing next to it's mother.]

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by SportFury59

A couple years ago a friend of mine and his girl friend were driving down road. An oncoming car hit deer and sent it through my friends windshield killing him and his girl friend - decapitated them. Another fellow I know was driving his motorcycle with his girlfriend on back. They hit deer - girlfriend killed, my friend suffered brain damage. He was an airplane mechanic - I say was; they won't let him work on airplanes anymore. I damaged many a good car hitting deer, luckily no injury on my part. Just last Sunday a fellow car guy was driving his '49 customized Chevy to a car show. (the last one of the season) Deer ran into his drivers door doing much damage; bounced off his car and hit his wife's car who was following him in her "68 Cougar. Talk about bad luck. Hitting a deer is bad enough, I can't imagine hitting a moose. Deer bow hunting season has been open now for almost a month in Wisconsin. Thank the Lord. Those deer are deadly.

Lifted truck with cattle guards.

Dead moose, one stop shoppin

[broadbill]

Originally Posted by mollysmiles

yes! You've never been to Maine have you?

actually, I live here...and compared to other places I've lived, there aren't that many deer here (probably because of the harsh winter last year). I'm sure its different in other places in Maine though. Now turkeys are a different story...at least where I live.

I was questioning the conclusion that deer are inherently deadly. It is people who have decreased the habitat of the whitetail deer with their roads and subdivisions. Decreased habitat mean more deer per square mile. More deer per square mile mean more interaction of deer with people (this this case, people driving in their cars). You could make the same case for an oak tree on the side of the road....it is deadly because we built a road next to it and somebody drove their car into it.

Now, before you make me a target of MHAPPI or whatever you call it, I'm all for hunting in these areas to remove overpopulated deer. IF you an do it safely.

But to blame deer, or beaver, or moose, as being "deadly" and for having the nerve to stand in the middle of the road waiting to ambush you and crash your car into them....well, I have to say that we all need to have a little more personal responsibility and make sure everyone gets home safe...we are the ones driving the car. In this equation, I would consider the car to be more deadly than the animal in the road.

[Elcarim]

Wow! So literal.......

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by mollysmiles

yes! You've never been to Maine have you?

He's very recently moved to or near Portland where the deer probably aren't as big a problem as they can be in other places.

[mollysmiles]

obviously you live in the southern part of the state.... you moved here without realizing that while you may be in the more populated area of the state, wildlife should still cause you to be attentive. If you would have moved further north, someone you met would have told you about this danger.

Deer are deadly, and I have known people killed in accidents *caused* by DEER, and MOOSE, not through any fault of their own. The simple fact that you believe that these collisions can be avoided worries me. That means that you're driving roads at dusk and dawn and all hours in between without looking to the sides of that road for wildlife. That could cost you your life here, as well as the lives of any passengers in your vehicle, or oncoming vehicles.

This isn't some "let's protect bambi" discussion, or some "but they're so pretty don't shoot them" discussion. It's about *human* lives that are lost because the wildlife get in the road. A more populated, meaning density, area is not necessarily less inhabited by wildlife either. Eastport has a huge deer problem, and has a small area of land with a decent population for that land. You talk about roads and subdivisions as if they're everywhere in Maine.... you're sorely misinformed about that. Maine is predominantly rural, and is huge. The idea that deer have lost their habitat through much of the state and that's why they're in our roads is simply outrageous!