Editor:
Once again deer season is upon us and the ritual slaughter of wildlife has begun in earnest.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife, in its unending quest for stupidity, has tried to preserve the Neanderthal “sport” called hunting. It has seen fit to introduce in our state a wide array of game animals, the deer notably being the largest. The deer have been relocated into suburban areas, where for the longest time they were once absent. They are now viewed as nuisances with the inevitable human-wildlife conflicts causing an outcry for more slaughter to lessen their numbers.
Isn’t it very strange how the Division of Wildlife claims it has sole authority over all wildlife yet it never assumes financial responsibility for the conflicts their animals cause?
The division seems to be oblivious in recognizing that it is the sole creator of the problem in the first place. The continuous hunting of a species, such as deer, skews the sex ratio over and over again, causing more and more animals to be produced. Killing to lessen numbers merely has the opposite effect.
Why reintroduce animals if the only reason is to allow them to be killed at a later date? Hunting as a wildlife management tool is not effective and presents a great danger to the nonhunting public. How is it that 6 percent of the population that hunt, use every one else’s tax money to help fund the Division of Wildlife, so come hunting season they have something to kill?
Perhaps if the Division of Wildlife was required to pay in a responsible fashion for all those deer/car collisions and people and insurance companies were able to get redress for the damages done, hunting would eventually be viewed as something whose time had come and gone. Perhaps, too, the 94 percent of the population that doesn’t hunt can exert some power over the ones who do and put the blame for wildlife conflicts with the ones who are responsible.
The state whose financial coffers are filled each hunting season should now be held accountable for its arrogant, misguided, and short-sighted policies that have caused all wildlife to be exploited and suffer needlessly each hunting season.
Daniel J. Carson
Cleveland, Ohio
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