Quote Originally Posted by captainjack0000 View Post
I saw somewhere in this thread somebody mention that some species become over populated. IMO there isn't much truth to that. What we have is too much human expansion. That is, the the animals were there first, at least before European's arrived. If you live in Florida, you should expect gators, and if you live in Texas you should expect snakes. The snake didn't ask for the housing development to encroach into its territory, so why should it be killed of relocated? Even in the midwest where the deer are over populated, what really happened is that every natural pretador of the deer was exterminated by humans, so their populations boomed, so we had play the role of the wolf/bear/etc and kill them to keep them in check. Look at yellowstone and wolf-elk relationships.

If you kill something, eat it, use it, and you become part of the ecosystem, otherwise you're a vagabond. I do not know of any single non-human animal in nature that just goes around looking at other animals. You either eat or be eaten.



Animal Planet - Suprisingly inHumane
That would be me that stated that earlier in the thread. Your splitting hairs. Whether you call it over population or human growth the end result is wildlife needs to be kept in check. And native rattlesnakes in places like texas are one of those species that need to be kept in check. The tracts of land that i have leases on are in areas where the deer need to be kept in check. This is why i work closely with the vdgif bioligists and the dmap program to dispatch my qoutas. We practice qdma ( quality deer management) on these tracts. I am givin a certain number of dmap tags every year to cull the herds. This is important for a number of reasons. 1 as human growth expands the natural food sources for the animals get smaller therefore you have issues as starvation, poor health etc that leads to disease. Have you ever seen what cwd does to deer? Cwd aka chronic waste disease is horrible. No cure. Its effects are neuroligical shut down, blindness, closing of the esophugus, and thats what happens before death so its slow and very painful and very contagious. The only remedy is mass dispatching of entire herds in a big area. Proper management practices of wildlife help stack the odds against these types of health issues in wildlife it needs to be done. It just is what it is. If we let the wildlife over populate and dont keep them in check it is worse for the wildlife. Now thats just with deer. The same issues hold true with any species of wildlife where they are abundant. The gators in the south are under a similar managment sytem. The wild hogs in the south and texas are so bad that it is nearly impossible to get them under control. So yes overpopulation is an issue