Did you ever sit down tally up the uses purebred dogs are said to be bred for? I have, and I found mostly hunting uses.
There are dogs who track animals, sprint after animals, fight animals in a burrow, and wrestle wild hogs. There are even dogs who are bred to specialize in hunting birds. And retrievers who fetch shot birds. When did rifles become accurate enough to shoot birds?
From ancient sprinting dogs carved on Egyptian tombs to duck retrievers, people have been using dogs to get meat, and to kill wild animals who eat our crops.
Hunting is bloody, it hurts and kills animals, and it ruins the woods for hiking because of all the bullets.
But deer would reproduce to the point that they were starving, and would kill the trees, and make roads unsafe to drive on in some areas. I have driven roads with deer running across them and the animals run right out on the road. A car crash into a deer can kill people. If deer were starving, there would be even more on the roads and in towns.
Yes they are beautiful, and I love seeing them with their little fawns, but I like seeing them alive, not starving, and not laying dead by the road where they have been hit by a car.
Until there is an inject able or edible sterilizer, mice, rats, rabbits, raccoons, and deer will keep reproducing.
At the end of winter, the number of animals is the number that the land can support in winter.
Then spring comes, and plants grow and there is more food for the animals. They have babies, and they eat up all the extra food in the summer and fall, (including wheat, corn, and vegetables) and then in the winter, food levels return to winter level and animals starve.
It's sad. But hunters kill some of the over population, maybe that's quicker than starving. It is sad. But I can find no answer that I like.
There is a difference between killing an animal and enjoying killing on animal. Like I have swatted flies and mosquitoes, and squashed roaches, but I don't enjoy it. I would find it a bit gross if someone really enjoyed killing bugs.
I think that's a problem I have with hunting. I can't find a replacement for it, coyotes, foxes, lynx maybe? Wolves and mountain lion for deer? But people don't want animals big enough to kill deer near their homes.
And we can't get rid of all the deer, because bushes would grow, die, and become tinder for fires, which would kill our wood industry, ruin the woods, and kill more animals. Bushes would grow where the trees were and without deer, we would be facing problems each year.
And if there were less deer in the woods, there would be more food for mice, rats, and rabbits - we would just be trading one problem for another.
Life doesn't always give us easy choices. For now, all I can think of is managing the situation as best we can.
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