Deer confinement best for all

I thought I would just "let a sleeping dog lie" after the first generation of critical letters to my essay entitled, "Manage hunters, not the deer."

However, the spirited letter by Phillip Berman (Potomac, Dec. 23) "There's no nice way to handle deer," provoked the following response.

First, I am not merely vegetarian, but vegan. I do not condone any form of violence that can be avoided. I do not eat meat, eggs or dairy products. I do not see any difference in the killing done in slaughterhouses and that done by hunters in the woods. If anything, rifle hunting is probably more humane than the business of factory farming. I would be most pleased if the majority of hunters dined with me at the vegetable garden when they are not indulging in venison at home.

I apologize if I painted a negative picture of the hunter. I confess that I do not know every hunter in Montgomery County personally. Certainly, that must mean that I have no right to state that they are not nice at all to deer. It is just that whenever I do see these people called hunters they are trying in

earnest to kill deer, which really isn't very nice. I mentioned that bowhunters may allow a deer to escape to die in agony. They obviously would try and track the deer down, but that certainly doesn't mean that the majority is successful.

I thought utterly preposterous the suggestion that each person should be "allowed to swing his arms as long as he does not hit someone else in the nose." Pardon me, but doesn't shooting a bullet into someone else's flesh fit the analogy of "hitting someone else in the nose?"

Lastly, Berman attacks my solution as impractical, and then suggests many ridiculous alternatives to hunting, in order to make hunting sound like the only possible solution. I will only address his criticism of my suggestion that we try to confine the deer population to areas where they will be at least out of harm's way of vehicles. Believe it or not, I would rather the deer be hit by bullets than cars. However, I am convinced that the lesser of two evils may be avoided as well.

First of all, the hardest step in my solution would be to establish sanctuaries, and get the deer in them. The fences would have to be tall; at least eight feet high. However, once the deer were confined to those areas, auto-deer accidents would virtually be a thing of the past within county limits. It may take a decade or so, but once they are confined in those areas, the only way deer could get into unprotected areas would be by literally coming into the county via the roadways.

This would also confine deer to public lands and private lands where they are welcome to graze; thus eliminating the second most common complaint about deer, which is destruction of folliage.

The third most concerning problem would be competition with other plant and animal species. There are two solutions to this. First, there could be areas off limits to the deer, which could serve as sanctuaries for other animals and plants. Secondly, if the deer population became excessive, we could institute population control methods discussed by others. That means anything from immuno-contraception to shooting some of them.

Regardless of how one feels about hunting, we need to keep the deer away from the highways - for our protection and for theirs.

Lastly, I would like to touch on population dynamics, specifically of deer populations. Several studies have shown that as population density goes up, the reproductive rate of does diminishes. The deer actually adjust better without predators than human populations have. The does become fertile at a much later age, when there is a little less to eat. Multiple embryos (twins and triplets) are less common when the population rises. So, once the deer are confined in several sanctuaries in Montgomery County they will likely allow their population to settle into a healthy equilibrium.

Jamey Lee West, Gaithersburg