Quote Originally Posted by roo4 View Post
Here in PA, Black Bears and Coyotes are significant predators of fawns. They might not pull down an adult deer on a regular basis, but they do target fawns. And we have a lot of bears, last year's harvest was over 3500 statewide.
3500 bears vs 390,000 deer taken by human hunters in Pennsylvania last year? Sorry, I'm not seeing how that bear population is enough to balance the deer population without human predation.

And @lph - I know - I'm far, far from the ideal myself, but living where I do, it's just a different equation. Sustainable food is fairly easy, but sustainable transportation is hard. We all do our best as individuals, but I'm talking as a matter of policy, to what extent unsustainable lifestyles should be supported and encouraged.

The first chapter or so of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - the chapter(s) where Kingsolver talks about her motivations, first for moving out of the desert and second for her family's yearlong effort - are what I'm talking about.

I'm not expecting everyone to make that kind of effort; she herself did it only for a year. But for what our policymakers ought to be encouraging, I don't see it as any different from building more and more narrow, busy, sidewalk-free roads, instead of investing in public transit and bike/ped facilities.