>The wildlife disaster is the White Tailed Deer. On any given day,
>you can walk through almost any wooded area in the state and find poor half
>starved deer. In some counties the problem is not enough buzzards to feed on
>all of the deer who starved to death!

I used to live in the mountains over the SF Bay Area about 45 minutes
from
Silicon Valley, where I worked. The road home, Hwy 9, is a twisty up
and
down ride, much of which can be negotiated at 50-60 mph.  There were
plenty
of deer - way too many - that appeared in two or three specific areas
night
after night at predictable times. They weren't scared of the cars,
especially, but they wandered out into the road and were an extreme
traffic
hazard.

My roommate and I both commuted to and from work, and in the year I
lived
there we *each* struck deer, despite knowing where and when they
usually
were and trying to avoid them. In my case, I had slowed down to 5-10
mph
while a dozen or so deer grazed on the shoulder and milled around on
the
edge of the pavement. As I was driving by one panicked and ran *into*
my
door, bouncing off the plastic. It swivelled around and bounded off in
another direction, none the worse for the encounter.  After talking to
locals, I discovered that this confused behavior is relatively common.
They must have brains the size of hazelnuts;certainly they did not
evolve
to deal with Honda CRXs in their environment. However, my friend was
not so
lucky. He hit one at speed and killed it and caved in the right front
quarter of his Toyota.

I also lived on the Monterey Peninsula, which is nothing short of
infested
with deer - you can't garden or even leave pet food outside because of
the
deer and other varmints in the area. The deer are in your yard, on the
golf
courses, in the parks, on the beach.  It's cute, for a while.

The wise have said, "Speak to everyone according to their capacity." I
always thought the best way to reason with the deer would be to eat a
huge
meal of venison, with lots of water, then pee around the perimeter of
my
yard - discreetly, of course.  I have heard that in some areas with
deer
problems people obtain puma or lion scat from zoos and distribute it
around
the garden for a similar effect.

Mike

Mike