Comedian Jay Leggett dies after killing deer

[Beringia]

224. Evidence, the fact that hunters want to kill

large bucks with big antlers and do not care about scientific management of deer, by killing mostly does.



The book “Deer Wars” also describes how both Roger Latham, a biologist dedicated to solving the problem of Pennsylvania deer overpopulation and overbrowsing of forests in the 1950s, and another proponent of proper deer management, Gary Alt who was head of the Game Commission for several years, leaving in 2004, were both driven out by the hunting community who did not want to follow their sage advice on how to manage deer populations.


Ultimately, though, Roger Latham was fired, his sin having been to argue for trimming Pennsylvania’s deer herd. He wanted hunters to shoot more deer overall, and to shoot more does in particular, to bring the herd into line with their available habitat, to prevent the possible outbreak of disease, to make the state’s forests a better home to a greater variety of plants and animals, and to make the deer themselves healthier, bigger, and less susceptible to starvation. (p 16)
Regarding Gary Alt who gave lectures to the Pennsylvania hunters on how to manage deer.
“Hunter expectations were developed in an era with extremely high deer densities”, Gary Alt says (former head of Pennsylvania Game Commission). “That caused a love affair with seeing lots of deer. They loved it so much they got hooked on it. That fueled their desires. The result, though, was that those desires prevented deer management, and caused billions of dollars in ecological damage. (p 240)

“When you read the history of deer management in this state, it reads like a horror novel,” former Game Commission Gary Alt says. “Every time anyone tried to change things by talking about deer in relationship to their habitat, they just got killed. They either quit, got transferred or got fired. (p. 22)

At each lecture, he would talk to hundreds of people abut the need to balance the number of deer with the available habitat. The lectures were hot. Sportsmen opposed to Alt's would show up ready to shout him down. Law enforcement officials within the Game Commission persuaded him to wear a bulletproof vest to his lectures.