Response: a) If there is lack of food the animal population will not grow as much. If there is less food there are going to be less animals.

Response: b) humans have overpopulated many areas of the earth which has resulted in lack of food and poor living conditions, yet we do not hunt and execute them.

Response: c) In recent years, deer populations have increased to numbers unsupportable by wildlife habitat alone. Many researchers believe that this increase results from continued human incursion into deer habitat, and the mismanagement of deer populations by forest and wildlife authorities who see hunting as the primary means of population control.  Wildlife and land management agencies purport to effectively limit deer populations to numbers sustainable by their natural habitat. In reality, the policies of such agencies exacerbate deer overpopulation, serving only to provide a population large enough to suit sport hunters. The overpopulation of deer stems not only from the specific mismanagement of deer populations, but from the mismanagement of our forestlands and natural areas. Currently, there are approximately eight does for every buck in the wild. Laws restrict the number of does that hunters may kill. Deer do not have monogamous mating relationships, and bucks will often mate with more than one female. As a result, the ratio of does to bucks sets the stage for a population explosion. Allowing hunters to kill more does, however, does not resolve population problems. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the open hunting of does left fawns without mothers, and removed too many females from the breeding population. Sport hunting decimated deer populations in many states. As a result, states passed laws restricting the hunting of does. These policies have contributed to the verpopulation of deer. (http://www.idausa.org/facts/deercontrol.html)

Response: d) Hunting does remove some animals from the population, but it does not keep deer populations at a continually reduced level. Immediately after a hunt, the remaining animals flourish because less competition for food exists, allowing the remaining animals to live healthier lives, and resulting in a higher reproductive rate. Left alone by humans, the ratio of does to bucks would be approximately equal. In Defense of Animals believes that sport hunting is not only an ineffective wildlife management tool, but a cruel and unnecessary practice. Sport hunting should be banned, allowing deer populations to regulate themselves naturally. (http://www.idausa.org/facts/deercontrol.html)

Response: e) This comes from the New Jersey Dept. of Fish and Wildlife website (http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw Note Commentary provided by BD.)- New Jersey offers sportsmen and women more than 500,000 acres of state-owned public open space providing a diversity of habitats from hardwood ridges and rolling hills to pine forests and salt marsh. (note:****If this is PUBLIC land, why are hunters allowed to kill on this land? I'm not a hunter and strongly disagree with hunting. If it's public land, - may I hike on it? And, if so, is there a risk of me being shot by a hunter?) This total includes more than 276,000 acres in 118 Wildlife Management Areas, specifically managed to enhance wildlife populations and provide for wildlife-oriented recreation. (note 2****Ah, I see. So, you're not REALLY trying to control wildlife populations, you're trying to ENHANCE them. Does this not go against what hunters and the NJ Dept. of Fish and Wildlife profess? You're not trying to keep wildlife down to 'controllable' numbers, you're trying to increase numbers to ensure your revenue from hunters. Typical lies coming from anti-nature zealots.) New Jersey offers more than a hundred days of deer hunting, including seasons for bow, shotgun and muzzleloading rifle. Multiple bag limits are the rule in most zones. The 2001-02 deer harvest was 68,669. In addition, some of the best waterfowl hunting on the East coast is found in the Garden State. Snow geese, brant, black duck, mallard, bufflehead and a variety of other waterfowl species provide extensive hunting opportunities, especially on the coastal marshes. The Rockport Pheasant Farm produces 55,000 pheasants annually for release on selected wildlife management areas. (note 3*****Huh? What! The Rockport Pheasant Farm PRODUCES? But why? If there is truly an 'overabundance' of animals (that need 'harvesting') why purposely BREED animals to be killed. I also heard that New York imports pheasants for hunting. Illogical, to say the least!) The wild turkey, reestablished in the late 1970s, continues to increase throughout the state with the population now estimated at 18,000 - 20,000 with an annual harvest of more than 2,000.  (note 4: ****(note 4: Can someone explain to me why the wild turkey needed to be reestablished? My guess is that they were hunted to such low numbers that they had to be bred and imported from other areas. AGAIN, illogical! Please, the next time you spout "conservation," "manageable numbers" or "over population," read you own text, FIRST!)

Response: f) Oh yeah--humans really know how to manage wildlife. Case study: A well-meant but misguided decision by conservationists is driving a central Asian antelope to the brink of extinction, a report claims today. Poachers who were encouraged to hunt the saiga, an antelope of the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan, to ease the pressure on rhino in Africa and Asia, have brought about a catastrophic 97 per cent fall in the animal's numbers in a decade, according to this week's New Scientist magazine. and The decline from more than a million to fewer than 30,000 is through to be the most sudden and severe population crash of a large mammal. The saiga has been hunted, says the report by Fred Pearce, a science writer, because in the early 1990s the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other conservation groups actively promoted the saiga horn as an alternative to the horn of endangered rhinos, which is used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine..... "The plains used to be black with these antelopes, but now you can go out there and not see any at all," says Dr Abigail Entwistle, director of the Eurasia programme of the conservation charity Fauna and Flora International. "This is the most sudden change in fortune for a large mammal species recorded in recent times."...According to the report, WWF began a campaign in 1991 in Hong Kong to publicise saiga horn as an alternative to rhino horn, which when ground up is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine as a remedy. Rhinoceros populations in Africa and Asia have also been devastated by poachers hunting them for their horns."...According to Eleanor Milner-Gulland, of Imperial College London, the leading Western expert on the saiga, there is no known case in biology where the sex ratio has gone so wrong that fecundity has disappeared in this way. Dr Milner-Gulland says that between 1993 and 1998, saiga numbers across central Asia almost halved, to around 600,000. Then, with most of the males gone, the population crash began in earnest, with numbers halving each year since, until last year's census recorded just 30,000 individuals....Hunters are unlikely to drive the saiga to total extinction but without an unexpected reversal in its fortunes it will soon be confined to zoos and a few small reserves." Rare antelope driven to edge of extinction by well-meaning conservationists (Independent, 13 Feb, 2003) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=377834