Fwd: [bcveggie] Re: BU Deer Slaughter updates: Has Dinicola/White Buffalo already begun?

Dick Andrus replies:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Andrus <randrus@binghamton.edu>
Date: Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Subject: [bcveggie] Re: BU Deer Slaughter updates: Has Dinicola/White Buffalo already begun?
To: Julian Shepherd <jshepher@binghamton.edu>
Cc: broomecountynygreens@yahoogroups.com, stpc@lists.riseup.net, nypamediaaction@lists.riseup.net, bcveggie@lists.riseup.net, GreenST <greenst@yahoogroups.com>, Peacenet <peacenet@listserv.binghamton.edu>, stnylightworkers@lists.riseup.net, James Van Voorst <vanvoors@binghamton.edu>, Dylan Horvath <dhorvath@binghamton.edu>, president@binghamton.edu, "Victor S. Lamoureux" <vlamoureux@stny.rr.com>, Gail C Glover <gglover@binghamton.edu>

1. The "mystery mounds" are now and have been for thousands of years, mounds formed by a species of ant known as the Allegheny Mound builder. It is a red ant in the genus Formica and makes mounds that are wonderfully engineered to take maximum advantage of solar radiation. They are typically made so that they face SSW on their long face, which maximizes solar heat gain in cooler parts of the year. They are exceedingly common around here and can be quite exciting to be near at certain times of the year as the ants bite ferociously. Sometimes bears may tear them open but generally they are left alone because of their bite. This time of year they are well underground. 

2. I have no idea what this is but I hope its more accurate than the report of the mystery mound bait stations! 

3. The large tree stand is on private property. Its been there for many years. Not sure if its even being used any more. There are numerous old tree stands around that were never taken down by the users. The Friends of the Nature Preserve has taken down several on BU land.

4. The Fuller Hollow Gun Club is what our neighbor to the east calls his property. I'm sure hunting is legal here. If they are baiting deer that's their problem. Many people feed deer in contravention of state law. I personally have removed a number of salt licks that a Murray Hill Rd. neighbor of the university put at a site on university property where he fed the deer apples. He also cut down a tree on university property to get a better view of the deer! 

People interested in this question should understand its full dimensions. Deer are large herbivores that are normally limited by either predation or periodic starvation. We have eliminated the large predators ( except motor vehicles!), leaving starvation as the main control. The state  originally created deer hunting regulations to do two things:

       1. Keep deer populations from getting too high so that many starve in bad winters

        2. Keep too many deer from being shot by hunters so that there are still some around next year.

(This has always been a tricky thing and deer biologists can count on always being wrong by some of the deer hunting public.)

The regulations worked for a while but with changes in the landscape and people's hunting habits (fewer hunters), deer have become serious economic problems. Some farmers can lose a lot of production to deer herbivory and so the state created nuisance permits allowing farmers to kill as many deer as they can on their own land to protect their crops. This sort of works but even then its hard to keep the numbers down for some farmers.

The other relatively new problem is the urban-suburban deer. Deer in this area have learned that developed areas are safety zones with often abundant food from shrubs, flowers and vegetable gardens. In my part of the City of Binghamton one must build an impenetrable barrier 10 feet tall to grow anything deer eat, and that seems to include any vegetables except the onion family! Deer sleep, reproduce and die in my backyard. The state has yet to figure out any way to deal with this as hunting is impossible in this context. 

One big fear from this huge uncontrolled population is some sort of disease like chronic wasting disease. Biology teaches us that its common when any animal population reached high densities that disease can and often does step in. This has already happened in some parts of the US. 

Since deer are large herbivores they need a lot of food and so at high densities they eat a lot. Unfortunately, just like that other sentient being Homo sapiens, they don't have any ability to tell them that they are eating their future and so lacking any control they will destroy their environment and food supply. There are several spectacular examples of this in the ecological literature, especially the Kaibab Plateau. What happens is that they will not only eat everything edible they can find but also destroy their habitat. When  the population inevitably crashes the habitat has been irreversibly damaged so that even when the deer are reduced, the carrying capacity has been radically reduced. 

Its not just deer that can do this but invasive pigs, rabbits, goats and even horses. But deer seem to be the prime problems in temperate zone ecosystems all over the world, e.g., The British Isles, New Zealand, & Japan. Deer can and do completely destroy a forest over time by eating virtually every plant that attempts to grow. Eventually the only things left are what deer don't eat and unfortunately in our case that does not include any native trees! So our campus forests are simply not reproducing. This has been going on for probably 50 years and now as older or diseased trees die off there is no replacement. Gaps are getting larger each year.

Many, many places are facing this problem of forest decline and are trying various means to control deer and save their forests. Wildlife ecologists have studied this problem carefully and have determined that deer densities need to be around 15 deer per square mile to prevent overgrazing. In more extensive  and less populated areas controlled hunting sometimes works but this has to be done regularly to be effective. Where deer populations are very high and populations densities  people are high, the only proven technique that can get the populations down to a level that allows the forest to reproduce again is expert sharpshooting. Hunting will not get enough and contraception, even if it did work, would still leave the current high densities around for the 10 years or so it will take for the current deer to die of old age. That's too long.

Fencing the entire campus with a 10 foot high chain link fence would cost a small fortune even if the logistic problems could be worked out. Our natural areas would then look like a prison! And then you'd have the problem of 1) would we drive all the current deer out first and have a place with no deer or 2) leave them all in to starve to death. And the fence wold keep some other mammals in or out as well.

Our intent is to reduce the numbers to carrying capacity . Initially the goal is to go a bit lower than 15/square mile to allow the severely damaged forest to recover.

If we do nothing it is clear that unless we are saved by an epidemic of chronic wasting disease, our native forest will die out and be replaced by some indeterminate plant community whose main characteristic will be inedibility to deer. You can make your own prediction here. Mine is Tree od Heaven as the only trees, shrubs of invasive honeysuckle and barberry and herbaceous cover of ferns and garlic mustard. Some of this is happening now. Nearly all of the native forest birds and mammals will also go, including deer as they gradually starve.

So the deer culling is actually not a murderous rampage by blood thirsty lunatics but the best we can figure out to do to save as much as we can under difficult circumstances., based upon the best science available.

Dick Andrus

On Jan 2, 2012, at 9:00 AM, William Huston wrote:

NEWS MEDIA, Please follow up on the following questions:

Note: these photos are hosted on Facebook. If you can't see the images,
please let me know. --- WM

1: What are the Mystery Mounds all through the Nature Preserve? Is this baiting the deer?
    i.e., is Binghamton University causing their own problem?!
    http://williamahuston.blogspot.com/2011/12/binghamton-university-has-been-baiting.html

2: WHO was erecting mechanical nets inside the Nature Preserve at 4pm 1-1-2012? and WHY?
    (audio and video evidence will be posted soon... the sound was IDENTICAL to the ratcheting heard
     at the beginning of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxe8Qn7lToM )

    I called BU Police and they told me they had no knowledge of Dinicola being on campus,
    but they insisted there was NO hunting, or trapping occuring on campus. BIG PROBLEM.

3: Investigate the Large Tree Stand located near the border of the Nature Preserve indicated below.
    We need to DEC out here with a GPS to determine if this is ON-CAMPUS or not.

4: Who owns the Fuller Hollow Gun Club, which is adjacent to the Nature Preserve? Is it Larry and Ruth Bleier? Is this legal for Residential Zoning? Have they been baiting deer? (unsubstantiated report)

From recon reports 1-1-2012.
Map, showing arial photo, + property boundaries.

• Large tree stand found at X1. May be on private land owned by "Thayne, LLC" 3401 Fuller Hollow Road, ID 175.09-1-2
  
• Mechanical nets heard being erected at X2 around 4:00pm.
• X3 is posted "Fuller Hollow Gun Club". Property ID is 175.10-1-17, 3909 Fuller Hollow Road, owned by Larry P and Ruth L Bleier. Zoned Residential 242.

1: This is at the southern most part of the Nature Preserve, a high plateau,
where Saddle Trail turns west and becomes Field Trail.
 To the east from here is posted signs "Fuller Hollow Gun Club. Danger Keep Out"



2: This is at the southern most part of the Nature Preserve, a high plateau,
where Saddle Trail turns west and becomes Field Trail.
To the east from here is posted signs "Fuller Hollow Gun Club. Danger Keep Out"




3: This is at the southern most part of the Nature Preserve, a high plateau,
where Saddle Trail turns west and becomes Field Trail.
To the east from here is posted signs "Fuller Hollow Gun Club. Danger Keep Out"



4: No Bows, Guns, or Trapping!!!


5: Heading North, down the muddy Field Trail, just past "Shrub Land" on the trail map.


6: Heading North, down the muddy Field Trail, just past "Shrub Land" on the trail map, I spot a trail to the left, with a tire at the end. Let's check it out.



7: Heading North, down the muddy Field Trail, just past "Shrub Land" on the trail map, I spot a trail to the left, with a tire at the end. Let's check it out.



8 Found the tire, now look up...



9: Found the tire, now look up... what's that?.....



10: HOLY SHIT!




Needless to say, I got out of there quick.

PLEASE help by calling the DEC out to investigate the location of this stand.
WHO owns the property? Is this stand on the Nature Preserve?
It is very close to the border, and is NOT posted.



--
William Huston            WilliamAHuston@gmail.com
Binghamton NY             Phone: 607-321-7846

SocialNet: http://facebook.com/billhuston
Videos:    http://youtube.com/billhuston         http://vimeo.com/billhuston
Bio/blog:  http://binghamtonpmc.org/bio.html     http://WilliamAHuston.blogspot.com
Binghamton-area discussion; spirituality topics: http://tinyurl.com/STNYlightworkers
Binghamton Public Access TV is Open-To-Everyone! http://www.O2ETV.org

--
William Huston            WilliamAHuston@gmail.com
Binghamton NY             Phone: 607-321-7846

SocialNet: http://facebook.com/billhuston
Videos:    http://youtube.com/billhuston         http://vimeo.com/billhuston
Bio/blog:  http://binghamtonpmc.org/bio.html     http://WilliamAHuston.blogspot.com
Binghamton-area discussion; spirituality topics: http://tinyurl.com/STNYlightworkers
Binghamton Public Access TV is Open-To-Everyone! http://www.O2ETV.org