Culling Failure
Deer culling is an expensive ($800K) failed experiment that was tried for five years and now we're right back where we started from, as the sharpshooter admitted, once you start, it's like mowing the lawn, you have to continue because the surviving herd grows stronger and reproduces at a higher rate.
Even without considering the rebound effect, the surviving herd is free to cross the road.
Its time to address the problem directly, to discourage all deer from crossing the road rather than spending $200 per year to only stop some of them from crossing the road. See Car Accidents page for details.
Compensatory Rebound Effect
Compensatory Rebound Effect (CRE) or simply Rebound has been studied and when understood leads to the disturbing conclusion that deer culling propaganda serves only one purpose to manage the deer population to keep a consistent supply of animals to kill year after year.“ By keeping the deer population below the carrying capacity of the available habitat, more forage (nutrition) is available per deer. Thus, does are healthier, reproductive success is higher and more does are able to carry two fawns. Ironically, this can result in a greater deer harvest each year. Depending on the relationship of the population and the carrying capacity, an „optimum sustained yield‟ can be achieved where a relatively high reproductive rate allows an abundant harvest each fall. "See the full article here. This article contains support reference material.
