04-18-2012, 08:27 AM
I know this isn't Hawaii but it could be our future.Think about it.I can't grow anything in my yard there because of the deer.
In 2005, 27,000 Ohio drivers saw, up close, what a deer in the headlights really looks like. Those car-deer collisions carried a cost of $71 million. Deer damage to crops, timber and nursery plants cost farm families additional millions. One Farm Bureau member has documented $70,000 in personal losses, likely an extreme, but indicative of the problem. A Cornell University study said that nationally, deer do more than $2 billion in damage every year. What’s irritating to farmers, and presumably insurers and policyholders, is that while most everyone proclaims the joys of abundant wildlife, only a few are paying the associated costs.
Part of the problem is we have too much of a good thing. Ohio’s current deer herd is estimated at 600,000. Just 20 years ago, we had 150,000. Making things worse, the herd has grown while open space has shrunk. As we turn their habitat into housing tracts, we’re forcing the deer onto freeways and farms.
In 2005, 27,000 Ohio drivers saw, up close, what a deer in the headlights really looks like. Those car-deer collisions carried a cost of $71 million. Deer damage to crops, timber and nursery plants cost farm families additional millions. One Farm Bureau member has documented $70,000 in personal losses, likely an extreme, but indicative of the problem. A Cornell University study said that nationally, deer do more than $2 billion in damage every year. What’s irritating to farmers, and presumably insurers and policyholders, is that while most everyone proclaims the joys of abundant wildlife, only a few are paying the associated costs.
Part of the problem is we have too much of a good thing. Ohio’s current deer herd is estimated at 600,000. Just 20 years ago, we had 150,000. Making things worse, the herd has grown while open space has shrunk. As we turn their habitat into housing tracts, we’re forcing the deer onto freeways and farms.