Page 263 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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GAME AND AGRICULTURE; DEER AS FOOD 241
their crops by deer. Clearl3^ it is more just that counties should settle these damages than that they should be paid from the state treasury, because the counties paying damages have large compensation in the value of the deer killed each year. The hunting appears to be open to all persons who hold licenses from the state.
In order that the public at large may know the cost of the Vermont system, I offer the following digest compiled from the last biennial report of the State Fish and Game Commissioner:
Damages Paid for Deer Depredations in Vermont During Two Years
Total damages paid from June 8, 1908, to June 22, 1910 $4,865.98 Total number of claims paid 311 Total number of claims under $5 80 Number between $5 and $10, inclusive 102 Number over $25 and under $51 23 Number between $50 and $100 11 Number in excess of $100 4 Number in excess of $200 1 Largest claim paid $326.50
Value of White-Tailed Deer.—Having noted the fact that in two years (1908-9), the people of Vermont paid out $4,865 in compensation for damages inflicted by deer, it is of interest to determine whether that moneywaswiselyexpended. Inotherwords,diditpay?
We have seen that in the years 1908 and 9, the people of Vermont killed, legally and illegally, and converted to use, 7,186 deer. This does not include the deer killed by dogs and by accidents.
Regarding the value of a full-grown deer, it must be remembered that much depends upon the locality of the carcass. In New York or Pittsburg or Chicago, a whole deer is worth, at wholesale, at least twenty- five dollars. In Vermont, where deer are plentiful, they are worth a less sum. I think that fifteen dollars would be a fair figure,—at least low enough
Even when computed at fifteen dollars per carcass, those deer were worth to the people of Vermont $107,790. It would seem, therefore, that the soundness of Vermont's policy leaves no room for argument; and we hope that other states, and also private individuals, will profit by Vermont's very successful experiment in bringing back the deer to her forests, and in increasing the food supply of her people.
Killing Female Deer.—To say one word on this subject which might by any possibility be construed as favoring it, is like juggling with a lighted torch over a barrel of gunpowder. Already, in Pennsylvania at least one gentleman has appeared anxious to represent me as favoring the killing of does, which in nine hundred and ninty-nine cases out of
every thousand I distinctly and emphatically do not. The slaughter of female hoofed game animals is necessarily destructive and repre- hensible, and not one man out of every ten thousand in this country e\'er will see the place and time wherein the opposite is true.