ENJOYING THE OUTDOORS: OVERKILL CONCERNS: UNREGULATED HUNTERS AREN'T DECIMATING WILDLIFE

Yes, Courtney, there are game laws, and for each a reason.

In a recent letter, young Courtney Stanley questioned some existing hunting regulations. The eighth-grader expressed concerns that some of the "same old rules" that stand year after year are too liberal and are allowing the depletion of wildlife.

Specifically, Courtney urged limiting each hunter to only one deer per year on the premise that more generous options will gradually eliminate the species. Noting that no animals should be taken unless the meat is utilized, she suggested rabbits should not be hunted because of the small amount of meat they provide.

On waterfowl limits, Courtney suggested two ducks annually per hunter should be the maximum.

Furthermore, she suggested that there should be no killing of some other animals, including "frogs, moles, horses, dogs, cats, etc."

Courtney covers a lot of ground with her letter, but she touches on issues about which others may have strong feeling or questions. Her concerns may not be unusual for a non-hunter from a non-hunting family.

On deer, any fear that whitetails may vanish under present regulations is quite unfounded. while deer, indeed, were struggling for survival in the early years of this century, hunter-funded conservation programs and protection efforts since then have brought numbers to a level that probably exceeds the continental population at the time when Europeans first came to North America.

In Kentucky, deer in the early 1900s may have withered to a population numbering in the hundreds, perhaps 1,000 or a little more statewide, but today that population is estimated at closer to 450,000.

There are in excess of 210,000 deer hunters in Kentucky, but well under 100,000 deer are tagged each year. Despite a two-deer limit plus options to take other whitetails on special management areas, the harvest averages less than one deer for every two hunters.

Because deer can live for several years, they can be "stockpiled" from season to season and the number taken by hunters clearly does have an impact. The primary method biologists use to manage deer, in fact, is adjustment of hunting regulations.

As an aside, while Courtney needn't worry that deer are going to be wiped out, I personally think Kentucky's whitetail hunting regulations could be more conservative. Kentucky's deer harvest has dropped for the past two seasons, and this season again may fall short of predictions while those of surrounding states continue to hit record highs each year.

Then again, biologists who shape regulations have access to more information and are in a better position to assess what needs to be done. It may come down to differences in what people think are enough or too many deer.

Back to Courtney's concerns; small game animals are quite a different matter from deer. Hunting regulations are designed to allow hunters to harvest rabbits, squirrels, quail and so forth from surpluses in the populations.

Regulated hunting has little if any significant impact on small game populations. Their numbers are dictated primarily by habitat, food sources and, to a lesser extent, on weather conditions through the hard months of winter. A high percentage of small game animals dies each year whether they are hunted or not.

Small game regulations for rabbits and other species are tailored to allow a harvest that won't affect the number of animals surviving through the winter to produce young critters the next spring.

Eliminating all hunting for small game animals probably would have no significant impact on their overall numbers. Each time a part of their habitat is eliminated, however -- a wooded acre cleared for a new house or a brushy field scoured clean for a business site -- small animal populations suffer immediately and from then on, as long as the habitat remains converted to a form in which they can't make their homes.

Two ducks per hunter per year? There are some who might chip in and agree.

Over a long span of years, duck populations generally have declined from the "good old days." The primary reason, like that affecting small game, is that habitat has been destroyed. Wetland where ducks live and reproduce have taken a beating from civilization over the past couple of centuries.

In more recent times, drought conditions in the northern American plains and in Canada limited the capability of ducks reproducing and raising good broods of young ducks to turn around those numbers. This year for the first time in a good while, a return of good water in the nesting areas saw a major rebound in duck numbers.

Ducks are affected by heavy hunter harvest, however, so regulations for waterfowl hunting are rigidly set on the basis of careful study by federal officials. The are carefully structured to have minimal effect on duck populations.

Before this year's duck rebound, when the picture for ducks seemed gloomier each year, there were calls from some quarters, including from some pro-hunting sources, to make regulations exceedingly tight, even to the extent of closing duck hunting for a season or more. (Duck regulations are much more restrictive than they were, but hardly as lean as two ducks a year or closing the season entirely.)

One factor in favor of duck hunting is that a vast majority of funds provided for waterfowl habitat work comes from the hunters themselves. License and stamp fees paid by hunters essentially pay for man's efforts in making duck habitat better. Most conservationists recognize that eliminating duck hunting ultimately might produce negative results on the ducks themselves by cutting off a source of money that benefits them.

On the killing of "frogs, moles, horses, dogs, cats, etc.," that's a rather mixed bag.

Frogs are regulated under small game rules. Like other small game species, regulated hunting doesn't affect populations long term, and bullfrogs provide some tablefare cherished by numerous froggers.

Moles all fall under the category of unregulated species. There's no likelihood of extinction here, for most people never see nor kill them. They are killed at times as pests when they tunnel in and raise havoc in people's lawns and gardens. there's not much difference in this and the trapping of mice and rats in homes.

Horses, dogs and cats go into yet another classification, that of domestic animals. Particularly with dogs and cats, more of these probably are destroyed by animal shelters than "hunters," if you would improperly call dog and cat shooters that. Most dogs and cats that necessarily are euthanized are eliminated because their simply isn't a place for all the domestic animals being born. This is a fault of those who don't neuter their pets and allow them to reproduce unchecked.

Simply put, domestic animals require man's care, and there's not room for unlimited numbers of them. But that problem starts with those who already have pets.

Courtney's letter indicates allowance for some hunting based on the use of game meat. What she may be looking past is that tablefare alone isn't the driving factor in why people hunt.

Game meat obviously should be and is put to use, but in terms of cost and efficiency, the easiest place to get food is at the grocery. The expenses of hunting would make venison steaks or roasted duck far more costly than the most prime meats from the butcher shop.

Hunters hunt because man is a natural predator. One doesn't have to be nowadays, but it's inborn. Hunting is a pursuit that places humans -- men, women and children -- back in a relationship with nature in a way that nothing else can.

Hunting is much more than killing something and bring home the meat. That's a pretty small part of it. The process of hunting and the interaction with the elements of nature are what matter.

The non-hunter might imagine hunting as all about killing. That presumes, however, to overlook a lot of byproduct experiences -- frosty-coated dawns, the taste of crisp autumn air, the enjoyed observances of countless unhunted animals and birds and the general bliss of just being out there in a sense of involvement with the wild.

There are plenty of successful hunting trips that don't involve a single shot fired nor any arrow released.

~Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor of The Paducah Sun.