Global warming VS. deer!

Comment #2

konane — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:04:20 GMT

Love your cartoon! Good one! I know of two people who've had collisions with deer ... car body damage, deceased deer. Many companies which sell tree seedlings also sell deer repellent to keep them from eating both bark and foliage, killing trees. Had not considered understory plants though.

Comment #1

jarasan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:38:33 GMT

I live right outside D.C. there are so many deer from Rock Creek all the way west and north south, that deer collisions are one of the staples of the auto body shop business! Every year for the last 25 years at least, I hear of someone I know having a run in with them. I see just about every day, deer road kill. A few years back a friend ended up in the hospital for two months because of one.

Original Blog Entry: Global warming VS. deer!

jarasan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:32:29 GMT

SYRACUSE, NY The Chair of the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY Syracuse says deer overpopulation is a greater threat to biodiversity in New York state than global warming.

Speaking to the Ithaca Journal, Donald Leopold explained that climate change isn't eliminating species, only moving their ranges.

Deer overpopulation, on the other hand, does eliminate other species, he noted.

No other real or perceived threat is so pervasive throughout the entire state, nor eliminates the majority, if not all, of the understory of natural communities, greatly reducing the diversity of our natural communities and the function of these communities, Leopold explained.

Ignoring what deer are doing... is worse than throwing litter on the highways, driving gas guzzlers, not recycling, and many other actions.

Leopold, who also serves as a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the program, researches drivers of diversity and causes of varity in terrestrial and wetland ecosystems. According to his website he has published over fifty-five peer-reviewed papers, six books, six book chapters, six invited book reviews, three proceedings, and many miscellaneous publications, all generally about topics in forest and wetland ecology, and native plants.

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