Too Many Deer on the Road? Let Cougars Return, Study Says

[Andrew_NZP]

Too Many Deer on the Road? Let Cougars Return, Study Says

Cougars can kill hundreds of deer over the course of their lives, leading some scientists to argue that restoring them to 19 states with large populations of deer could prevent automobile-deer collisions.

What large mammal regularly kills humans in the Eastern United States?

And what other large mammal might significantly reduce those deaths?

The answer to the first question is the white-tailed deer. Deer do not set out to murder people, as far as anyone knows, but they do jump out in front of vehicles so often that they cause more than a million collisions a year, resulting in more than 200 deaths.

The answer to the second question, according to a new scientific study, is the cougar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/s...dy-says.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur

 

[overread]

Whilst I broadly support reintroduction of lost species to air restoring balances in unbalanced systems its also interesting to note that in most situations prey controls predator population more than predators control prey population (as shown in the extreme with the snowshoe hare and lynx populations in regions where lynx hunt almost exclusively the hare).

To my mind population increase and high road collissions suggests a few things to consider in addition;
1) Population increase of deer - population increase suggests increased food provision and potentially increased territory access. Both factors to consider in how they are impacting deer populations. It would be key to note those sources otherwise cougars might only moderate populations and not result in an actual effective decrease if food and land continue to be abundant (esp if cougars don't result in habitat and behavioural changes of the deer that push them away from the abundant food sources).

2) land access/fear. Are the deer growing more bold and gaining access to new resources outside of where they normally would; further would cougars encourage deer away from those areas to toward them - esp if those areas are human linked since potential threat of deer is mostly financial whilst threat of cougars is seen more as life-threatening (thus protective measures might well create those zones as havens for deer to avoid cougar predation).



It's a difficult thing though, as convincing people to accept renewed danger in their environment and competition goes against all most societies aim for and indeed what most basic instinct calls for; esp in a sedentary species (which we currently are, more or less).
Even introducing species that are not considered a danger to human life can have huge problems getting a foothold again within an environment where they are seen to be competing for resources or impacting on incomes earned (which often is the greatest problem - at least in the UK many species have trouble getting re-established without full support of the hunting/farming/fishing/game sector who are often those financially hit by predation or habitat changes).