I read an opinion article in a New Jersey newspaper called, The Ashbury Park Press. What was said in the following quote raised my blood pressure a notch. The quote was,

“This has nothing to do with hunting and fishing rights, but with manipulation of wildlife numbers to satisfy a small minority who want to hunt. Mismanagement of the wildlife has caused conflicts among the residents. The killing of the deer in our county parks, the hunting of bears and the roundup and killing of Canada geese are stark examples of gross mismanagement.” Entire Article Here

My question to the writer is (as in my post title), How do you manage wildlife without hunting and fishing? Allowing wildlife to max out the carrying capacity of their particular environment has consequences that should be known to anyone who knows (and understands) basic ecological principles. The writer must have missed those classes.

Wildlife managers also know these principles. That is why in areas where hunting or fishing is not allowed they also initiate the following expensive (meaning cost to the state or province) measures:

• culling – Called in government ‘Trained’ snipers (usually expensively payed hunters)
• poisoning – as the name indicates poison is left in strategic areas that are supposed to target the correct species
• sterilizing – involves capturing animals and injecting them with the sterilizing chemical

I hope the anti-hunters out there are proud to perform the above measures. I don’t know about you but hunting/fishing sounds more cost effective and humane than poisoning deer or fish. The hunter/angler will not waste the meat but who knows where the poisoned animals where die. What happens to the animals that eats the poisoned dead animal?