Deer

Suburban deer are being culled as vermin by municipalities and townships across the U.S.. I heard a recent National Public Radio piece about a township in Michigan where deer populations are thriving and invading human space, including downtown streets. There are over 1.5 million deer-car accidents a year in the U.S.. 

The reporter I heard referred to the deer issue as a case of a species without predators. There was a brief exposition on the introduction of wolves into ecosystems. I laughed. The planet is swarming with 7 billion unchallenged predators, many of whom are starving. 

Beef and pork breeding for those who can afford the meat degrade the planet significantly. They are highly inefficient forms of food production for protein in the human diet. Deer, on the other hand, can live in the wild in great numbers, as buffalo once did and still could do, if corporate corn agriculture was banned on prairies and meadows. Pork lovers could be invited to hunt wild boar.  This would restore respect for pork sausages. 

Deer and buffalo, managed correctly, could be the salvation of the North American ecosystem, not a scourge to be culled and disposed of as novelty meat. Corporate capitalism stands in the way of implementing such a rational approach. Corporate capitalism is dysfunctional in a functional natural ecology.