Given their abundance in the American backyard, gardens and highway corridors nowadays, it can be surprising to hear that white -tail deer were almost extinct almost a century ago. While they are currently somewhere in the reach of 30 million to 35 millionAt the beginning of the 20th century there were as few as 300,000 Whitetails Over the entire continent: only 1% of the current population.
This almost inflammation of deer was much discussed at the time. In 1854 Henry David Thoreau had written that no deer had been hunted for a generation near Concord, Massachusetts. In his famous ‘Walden’, he reported:
“A man still keeps the horns of the last deer killed in this area, and another told me the details of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were previously a numerous and cheerful crew here.”
But what happened to white -tail deer? What almost destroyed them, and what brought them back from the edge?
As a historical ecologist And environmental archaeologist, I made it to answer these questions. In the past decade I have studied white -tailed bones from archaeological locations in the Eastern United States, as well as historical data and ecological data, to merge the story of this species.
Precolonial Rise of Deer Populations
White -tailed deer are hunted The earliest migrations From people to North America, more than 15,000 years ago. However, the species was far from the most important food source at that time.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the abundance of the white-tail deer only started to rise after the dying out of megafauna Species such as mammoths and mastodons opened ecological niches for deer to fill. From about 6,000 years ago, deerbots become very common in archaeological locations, which are the economic and reflection of the economic and cultural interest of the species for native peoples.
Although they are hunted so often, deer populations do not seem to have fallen considerably due to the native hunt prior to 1600 AD. eland or sturgeonWhose figures were reduced by native hunters and fishermen, seem to have been white -tailed deer against human predation. While archaeologists have found any evidence for man -caused falls in Certain parts There are other cases of Noord -Arikika more ambiguousAnd deer has certainly remained abundant in the past millennia.
Human use of fire could partially explain why white -tail deer may have been resilient to hunting. Indigenous peoples in North America have long been used controlled combustion To promote the health of the ecosystem, so that old vegetation is disturbed. Deer love this Type of follow -up of vegetation for food and coverage, and thus thrive in previously burned habitats. Indigenous people may therefore have facilitated the growth of the deer population, preventing any harmful hunting pressure.
More research is needed, but although some hunting pressure is clear, the general picture of the precolonial era that Deer seems to have done well for thousands of years. Ecologists estimate That there were around 30 million white-tailed deer in North America on the eve of European colonization-over the same number as today.
A 16th-century engraving shows native Floridians who hunt deer while they are disguised in Hertenkins. [Photo: Theodor de Bry/DEA Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images]Colonial time attack of deer numbers
To better understand how deer populations have changed in the colonial era, I recently analyzed deer bones of two archaeological locations in what is now Connecticut. My analysis suggests That hunting pressure on white -tailed deer almost increased as soon as the European settlers arrived.
On one site dates from the 11th to 14th century (before European colonization) I discovered that only about 7% to 10% of the deer were killed young people.
Hunters generally do not accept youth deer if they often encounter adults, because adult deer is usually larger and offer more meat and larger skins. Moreover, the hunt increases mortality on a hen herds, but does not have a direct influence on fertility, so deer populations experienced hunting pressure, ending with age structures with juvenile age. For these reasons, this low percentage of youth deer prior to European colonization indicates a minimal hunting pressure on local herds.
On a nearby site, however, occupied in the 17th century – just after European colonization – between 22% and 31% of the hunted deer were young people, which suggests a significant increase in hunting pressure.
This increased hunting pressure was probably the result of the transformation of deer for the first time in a merchandise. Deer, antlers and deerkins may have been exchanged in for a long time Indigenous trade networksBut things changed drastically in the 17th century. European settlers integrated North America in a transatlantic mercantile capitalist economic system Without a precedent in indigenous society. This was applied New pressure on the natural resources of the continent.
Deer – in particular their skins – were initially codified and sold in markets in the colonies and, in the 18th century, also in Europe. Deer were now operated by traders, traders and manufacturers desirable profitNot only hunters who want meat or leather. It was the resulting hunting pressure that drove the species to its extinction.
20th-century rebound of white tail deer
Thanks to the rise of the nature conservation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white -tailed deer survived their brush with extinction.
Worried citizens and outdoor people Farse for fate Van deer and other animals in the wild, and insisted on new legislative protection.
The Lacey Act from 1900For example, forbidden interstate transport of poached play and in combination with protection at state level and the end of the commercial deer at the end of the species by effectively disinfecting the species. Assisted by conservation -oriented hunting practices and reintroductions from deer from surviving populations to areas where they had been eradicated, white tail Deer returned.
The story of white -tailed deer underlines an important fact: people are not inherently harmful to the environment. Hunting from the 17th to the 19th century threatened the existence of white -tailed deer, but precolonial indigenous hunting and environmental management seem to have been relatively durable, and modern regulatory administration in the 20th century in the 20th century that extinction their threatening extinctions.
Elic WeitzelPeter Buck Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institution
This article has been re -published from The conversation Under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article.
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