I have my doubts about the validity of the information in this article. It was by no means an objective study. The Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, CCELD, and CT Audubon, all of whom strongly promote the mass killing of deer, paid for it. Then there is the way the “study” was done. The data were based in part on a alleged "comprehensive" 2003 survey of residents in Bernards Township, NJ. Delving into the findings (http://www.bernards.org/Township%20Committee/Document/StateAppl2004-2005R-040240.htm#_Toc74725673), I learned that the study was based on 775 responses to a mail-in survey in a community of over 24,000 residents. That is definitely not “comprehensive”. The survey’s estimates of financial impact are almost certainly biased. Residents who have experienced perceived deer-related damage are undoubtedly more likely to respond to such surveys, and with exaggerated dollar amounts. Scientific and valid? Absolutely not. The FCMDMA and CCELD try to convey scientific legitimacy to their killing policy by citing peer-reviewed science. But, with this “study” they have exposed their true colors of promoting propaganda-laced pseudo-science. In the computer industry we have an adage: “Garbage In; Garbage Out.” When the FCMDMA and its cohorts decide to kill deer based upon faulty input data, they stretch the credibility of rational people. View Comment

Ken Prince Jr. has been drinking the DEEP and Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen KoolAde when he says: "Nope. License fees from hunting & fishing are dedicated to conservation." To the contrary, Connecticut General Statutes, Chapter 490 (Fisheries and Game), Section 26-15b indicates that license fees pay for all the functions (including operations) of the DEEP Wildlife Division: "Sec. 26-15b. Annual report re license, permit, stamp and tag fees and expenditures for fish and wildlife programs... the amount of funds expended on fish and wildlife programs and the purposes for which such funds were expended. Additionally, such report shall include, but not be limited to, the amount of expenditures for: (1) The protection, propagation, preservation and investigation of fish and game, (2) the operation, administration and maintenance of fish and wildlife facilities, (3) the operation and administration of wildlife management areas and fish and wildlife access areas, (4) the restoration and enhancement of fish and wildlife habitat, (5) the operation and administration of angler and hunter education and outreach programs, and (6) the administration of fish and wildlife technical assistance programs." Running operations for Wildlife Division is NOT conservation; it is mostly for the recreational killing of wildlife. View Comment

Teaching children to have a profound absence of guilt and empathy for killing wildlife spills over into their attitudes towards human beings. Psychologists have studied the profiles of hunters and serial killers and found them to be exactly the same. Serial killers usually choose victims that they can easily overpower just like hunters who kill defenseless animals such as deer. Serial killers have no empathy for their victims; hunters, especially bowhunters, take pleasure in watching their wounded prey suffer a slow and agonizing death as they bleed out. One could go on endlessly, but the bottom line is that miscreants like Howard Killpatrick [sic] are creating psychopaths when they attempt to get young children to learn to hunt. View Comment

John, how you do display your lack of knowledge of Lyme disease. And of basic science. Deer are NOT the vector, the black-legged tick is. The adult tick stays on a deer less than five days to take a last blood meal. And deer DO NOT carry the lyme bacteria. They are reservoir incompetent meaning that the bacteria are killed by the deer immune system. And if there are no deer around for that last supper, any medium or large sized mammal would do, including humans. I guess that means you also got to hunt and shoot humans. As Sir Walter Scott said, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive." View Comment

John, admit it. You wrote this article based upon Audubon's bogus “study” of deciduous forests and supposed deer damage. But you hired a Yale graduate student whose area of “knowledge” was tropical rain forests and their ecology, not forests in New England. Likewise you helped FCMDMA pay for anothe bogus study on the economic impact of deer. That was so ridiculous because the source of the dollar amounts were from biased deer haters in Bernards Township, NJ. And they were 700 out of 20,000 residents Sadly, these bogus studies from the eraly 2000's are used as the rationale for killing deer today.That's barbaric! BTW, do you know that Audubon wants to kill all stray cats in the country, too, claiming the cats are killing birds. In fact there are innumerable other reasons for bird demise that Audubon doesn't acknowledge, including human abuse of the ecosystem. Lastly, John, do you know Audubon killed many thousands of birds so that he could paint pretty pictures of birds? View Comment