The deer have become way over populated! People used to see no deer and now they see 30- 35 deer every square mile. How are we supposed to solve this problem? The problem could be from overhunting. Or that we have to much vegatation. We could control the overpopulation of deer by letting the gray wolves back into the wild, but the gray wolves would have a lot of food and THEY would overpopulate. So what exactly cacn we do? Read on and figure it out. Some people think that they are doing everybody a favor when they put up those " No Hunting" signs. Well, they're not. They are letting the deer have a place where the can feel safe and have a lot of food. You know what else they can do there? Reproduce! Because they have so much food they start giving birth to fawns at age one, instead of when they usually do it, at age two. Also, when the hunters go out hunting they kill the bucks more than they kill the does. The bucks can mate with 8 or 9 does and with the population of does increasing steadily it could become 11 or 12 does. There has been deer hunting allowed year round, and when the deer feel threatened, they start to reproduce. Hunting has helped a little, though we don't need AS much. The overpopulation of deer has caused 1.5 million deer and vehicle crashes in 2003, injuring 13,713 people and causing $1.1 billion in vehicle damage. The overpopulation of deer has cost us time, money, and even lives. There are a few ideas and we could definately use them. 1: We could bring back the wolves, bears, coyates, and lynx. That should keep the deer population in check, but the wolves, coyatoes, bears, and lynx could become overpopulated. 2: We could lift some of the restrictions on hunting near areas populated by humans. That would take care of overpopulation of deer AND humans. 3: If we lessen the hunting, then the deer wouldn't feel "forced" to reproduce. 4: This would probably be the hardest of all. We could neuter every 2 in 7 bucks. It would be hard, but it would help everything, even the deer. You may not know what a deer looks like or what it does. You, of course, can look at the pictures, but do they really explain a lot? Deer are plant eaters. They mostly eat corn, acorns, other nuts, buds, and twigs. Since deer are not comfortable around people, they eat in the early morning and late afternoon. They live in southern Canada and most of the United States. They do not live in Alaska or Hawii. The deer mate in November and the does give birth in the spring. The bucks have antlers, but not all the time. January through March, they shed their antlers. The antlers grow back in April or May, but before they completely grow back, they have velvet studs. The velvet comes off in August or September. The time that the bucks are most vunerable is January through March. The males weigh 150- 300 lbs. The females weigh 90- 200 lbs. The more food they eat, the more they weigh. It is not good to have overweight deer. They eat the vegatation and then what are we left with? The overpopulation of deer is DANGEROUS! So now you know about the deer population. Ask around, maybe you could find a way to help. The overpopulation of deer is hurting deer, the environment, the ecosystem, and humans. People have seen deer without tongues and with broken legs. This means they are starving. So we have to grow some more vegatation, but it will never be enough. We need to stop the deer population from taking over the world!

A Young Fawn A doe eating all the vegatation