On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 22:38:57 -0700, "Calif Bill"
wrote:

we are seeing less and less Bambi's in California. Since the eco-nuts have
protected the mountain lion, they have done what cats have always done.
Make lots more cats. Now they run out of deer to eat, and take out pets and
a few hikers. We have endangered Desert Big Horn sheep. Most every
fatality of the decreaseing numbers is caused by mountain lions. Which are
not that rare here.

That's interesting, because we're seeing the opposite effect here.

The deer herd in CT is higher than it was 50 years ago and in the last
10 years it's expoloded - consider that in 1970 it was 20,000 head.
2000 it was close to 135.000 and estimates that it could go as high as
175,000 by 2010 were wrong - they reached that mark last year.

Natural predation is present from coyotes to small feral dog/coyote
hybrids and recently, there have been cougar and large bobcat spoor in
the area and in other areas of the state. Their impact is small
however and the herd keeps growing. Last year was the first open
season on doe and there's talk of another open season on doe this
year.

With all due respect to Harry, feeding the deer is a incredibly
ignorant thing to do. Quite beyond taking them to relate to humanity,
there is the danger of bacterial infection to humans from exposure to
deer hemorrhagic disease. Not to mention Lyme Disease.

Not a smart thing to do.