Local Hunter Accuses Cornell of Deer ‘Genocide’
Cornell now doesn’t have enough deer. Sterilizing the does may attract more bucks to campus.
Cornell University is complicit in the “genocide” of deer, according to a local hunter.
For years now, the university and Cayuga Heights have been in a battle against the local deer population.
One way the campus seeks to control the deer population is by allowing hunters to kill deer on campus. But there is reportedly so much hunting on campus and in the area that one man thinks the school is allowing a genocide.
“I don’t believe there should be any hunting on Cornell land,” Bill Enslow told The Cornell Daily Sun. “But if there [is], do what the state does with their hunting season, don’t say, ‘well, the deer are killing off the woods,’ and do a genocide right now.”
Enslow said he has a problem with allowing the hunting of pregnant deer.
The student newspaper reported:
White-tailed deer, the only deer allowed to be hunted on Cornell-owned land, breed from October through January and give birth in late spring — the same time frame that [Deer Damage Permits] allow for extended hunting.
Enslow said he and other hunters he’s spoken to in the area “don’t like the ethics of shooting pregnant does and fawns after the regular hunting season.”
This is not the first time Cornell has tried to control the deer population. However, a past attempt had the opposite effect, attracting more deer to the area.
As reported by Legal Insurrection in 2014, officials first tried tubal ligations, or sterilization, of female deer, along with some hunting.
The problem, though, is that this leaves the female deer in heat, which means they attract more bucks.
As the Washington Post reported at the time:
Under normal conditions, all female whitetails go into heat within several weeks of each other and become pregnant at around the same time. This annual event is called the rut. However, if a doe is not impregnated during the rut, it will enter heat again the following month and again the month after that. Because the ligated does were unable to become pregnant, they continued to produce chemical signals of readiness to reproduce — signals that can attract bucks from miles away.
Or, put better by the Post, the policy created “buck magnets.”
And there we have a solution to Enslow’s concerns about genocide: find some does, let them loose, and wait for the bucks to come. Whether they are sterilized or not, Cornell will end up with more deer on campus.
[Featured image courtesy of National Park Service]
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Comments
who gives a buck??
but ,,hmmmm
hunting on campus
oh dear that does make one think about what should actually be hunted by the good people
China learned this lesson… kill the females and populations decline. Disney did the world no favors when Bambi’s mother was killed by a hunter. But then one cartoon did equal the odds… Godzilla meets Bambi. Deer are a nuisance… a tasty one…. but not when impaled in the grill of your car…. but when on the cooking grill instead.
Genocide. Must be those pesky Jews again.
It’s obviously all Trump’s fault.
If you don’t like the ethics if it don’t hunt during that season.
I didn’t have hunters becoming neovegan-esque wokescolds on my bingo card.
There are many animals killed while pregnant and do you speak out against veal too? (which is delicious btw)
Sounds like he’s a standard conservationist: this isn’t how you maintain a healthy herd that can be properly hunted.
A standard conservationist invokes genocide?
Bah…missed the mark here.
OK, maybe not.
Yes I do!
It’s cruel
Lol no one was actually asking you. I was referring to the hunters bringing the suit.
If you really want to witness cruelty, look at how Mother Nature takes care of overpopulation. Have you ever seen deer being eaten alive by coyotes or dogs? That’s Mother Nature. Have you ever taken a walk in the woods in the spring and found herds of dead deer that starved to death because they were unable to move to an area with more food? Have you ever seen a deer with wasting disease or another fatal condition caused by overpopulation? Have you ever hit a deer with a car? Those things are cruel.
Why is killing a pregnant doe somehow offensive to his tender sensibilities? Whitetails always manage to reproduce until there are too many for the feed available, then they die in more miserable ways than a quick bullet. Maybe he’d prefer the pregnant does to be run to death by neighborhood dogs.
Sounds more like a troll than a hunter; my guess he has “voted for Trump three times” as they all say.
Killing pregnant females of any species is cruel and inhumane
Real hunters will not do that
The wildlife we have out here are pregnant all the time except when they are nursing. So pick a time.
Do what? Deer breed during the ‘rut’. That occurs, in Bama, not at a single time but as a rolling rut by region from Nov to Feb. Deer season in Bama runs from mid October to mid Feb when we account for ‘limited’ hunts for youth, archery and muzzle loaders. Hunting laws usually regulate location, time of year, time of day, method used and bag limits.
In sum ‘real hunters’ absolutely take pregnant game. It is not only legal but very ordinary. I am unaware of State that explicitly prohibits taking of game due to pregnancy.
These are not “real hunters” – they are volunteers engaging in population control of a pest. Deer overpopulation has a horrible impact on the ecosystem.
Here’s an article from The Audubon Society discussing the problem. I think that they’re reasonably considered as a “pro-nature” group.
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/surging-deer-populations-are-crisis-eastern-forests
Dont kill the pregnant ones (thats 5 months); dont kill the mothers who are nursing (which is about 3 months); dont kill the mothers while the fawns are learning to be independent…
Pretty soon there is no time you can kill does, lol.
The goal is population management. One pregnant doe today equals 3, 4, maybe five deer next year.
You are half right: we have the responsibility to manage the herd because we are the only natural predators (unless you want to reintroduce bog cats and wolves to Ithaca). Deer eat tons of vegetation a year, clearing the forest and eliminating habitat for birds and amphibians.
To manage the population, you have to kill the ones that breed (does). Want to introduce natural predators? I can guarantee you, wolves and big cats will eat them just the same. oh, those predators love pets, too.
Or hit by vehicles or get overcrowded and spread wasting disease.
Acting like this is some kind of commercialized extinction is a ridiculous hyperbole from someone that just wants attention.
Spoken by someone that doesn’t appreciate wildlife and its place on earth and our responsibility to it
God gave us that responsibility
Spoken by someone that doesn’t understand proper game management. That “hunter” sounds to me like someone that either didn’t get a permit to hunt on the campus or someone that just sucks at it so bad he can’t shoot a deer.
“White-tailed deer, the only deer allowed to be hunted on Cornell-owned land” What other deer species do they have running around as I’m not aware of any other native to that area except, maybe, the random moose.
Deer culls happen the year round in areas with severe population problems and doing so after the doe is impregnated is a good way to manage the future problem by removing the fertile breeding base. What Cornell is doing is a standard management tool to reduce a population that is larger than the environment can handle, cut down on disease transmission such as CWD and maintain a small, healthy herd.
I am skeptical this is a real hunter. I think its a leftist masquerading as a hunter.
I say kill them all. Deer are overpopulated. The reality is you will *never* get them all because they move around, so deer outside Cornell land will move in.
Full disclosure: I was once accused by lefist karens of being a “murderer” because i killed “a whole family” of deer in a nearby park (legally). The bag limit in maryland for does is unlimited (because the state also wants you to kill them all lol). They got donated, Yes, get the “pregnant” ones too because thats a 2-fer or a 3-fer. those fawns breed.
You were accused rightly
Pretty disgusting
I have 15+ deer roaming in the open space around my property, mowing the understory bare. One is nice, two are a family, 15 are a nuisance and ecological disaster. kill ’em all, let the butcher sort it out.
Ya, but using hunters actually saves a lot of dough.
Here in Merryland, they often cancel the “sharpshooting” because of the budget. Volunteers kill about 5x as many deer for 1/4 the cost.
Why not just increase the bag limit on doe during hunting season and maybe expand the season a bit one either end?
Crop damage permits IMO are better. Id rather hunt on a crop damage permit esp in suburban/urban areas because I can avoid the foot traffic. Cant tell you how many times a dog walker has walked near my stand, even though the signs said park closed. Cornell, I’d be hunting summer when the kids are out of school. Oct, Nov, Dec, I’d run a higher risk of a protest or something.
No offense, but you blood thirsty types are missing the point when it comes to overload of a species in a given environment. Eliminate apex predators, and this is your result. Texas went one step further by eliminating the screw worm years ago due to ranchers fear they were infecting and killing their calves. The result, deer population has exploded, and no matter how many bloodthirsty rednecks pop em from deer blinds, population still grows
Sure, but we *are* the apex predator. You think wolves, bobcats, or scew worms care whether the deer is pregnant? I’d be fine (re)introducing large cats and wolves to the northeast, but they tend to also prey on Karen’s precious fluffy.
I actually WANT to re-introduce bears, big cats, and wolves to certain areas. Particularly ones with a large group of human vultures that prey on other weak humans. “Hey, Crips, meet the newest gang in your ‘hood: Willie’s Wolfpack.”
I’d be fine with that, except the last time the MD DNR introduced a “predator” to take care of an invasive species, the predator expanded everywhere but didnt take care of the invasive species (because there was other, easier game).
The trouble with DNR introducing deer predators is that 1/if there is a way to screw it up, the government will; 2/it will cost the government 10x the necessary cost because they will bid it out to their friends; 3/the law of unintended consequences. Predators that eat deer also go after dogs, cats, and small children when there arent enough deer.
Meanwhile, volunteers are lining up to shoot the deer for free.
Trouble is the four-legged predators would just prey on the same weak humans as the two-legged ones do. They’re slower and don’t fight back. So you’d only be making the problem worse, for not much gain.
You may think we are the apex predator, but go take a swim off the Farrallon Island and be mistaken for a seal by a Great White! That’s when you get knocked down a notch on the apex scale. Or accidentally come between a Sow and her cubs, Or maybe accidently step on a diamondbacks walking through the brush. Then whose boss!
Sharks? Sooo…your grand plan is to introduce sharks to Ithaca to cull the deer? What?
Land sharks!
At the turn of the 20 century, deer populations in the US were very low. As you point out, improving the health of the cattle herds helped …if no saved… the deer . The screwworm is making a comeback…ugh. What’s Texas hunting laws for does? “Do… a deer…a female deer..bang”
Screwworm death is a horrible horrible way to die
We have plenty of coyotes in my neighborhood as the deer population exploded
The deer population has been cut in half, but the coyotes population has exploded
And the coyotes don’t seem to be afraid of humans
That’s not a good thing
I was actually surrounded by 4 coyotes last year with my 80 pound 1/2 pit, 1/2 German Shepard.
We were lucky we were right next to my house and I called my husband out to help with my phone.
They then didn’t like the change in numbers and left
It was terrifying. Think I was about to be on a episode “I was Prey”
I told the State Parks and Wildlife and the idiot told me because they left with my husband showing up he was “ok” with their behavior.
I told him he was an idiot, I could have been a kid with a small dog and the outcome would have been different.
I had changed my behavior prior, but I have 3 dogs and he was the last to be walked and unfortunately I stopped to talk to a neighbor for a few minutes and the sky turned to dusk, that’s when they come out of the woods to hunt.
exactly why humans need to cull the herd.
why arent the deers being fed the morning after pill???
170 grains of the morning before pill works better!
They actually tried that a few years ago. As the post says, it only made things worse, because the does stayed in heat.
You all won’t be happy until all we have are pigeons and rats
Your plan to cull the overpopulated deer: _______?
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