The Kaibab Deer and Bush's War: The Wrong Public Policies of Killings & Quick Fixes
Nipawin - Monday - January 27, 2003 - by: Mario deSantis
Last Friday, I worked on a system dynamic model simulating the behaviour of the deer population of the Kaibab Plateau in the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve. In this plateau, deer hunting was prohibited and in a move to increase the deer population estimated to be around 5,000 a bounty on deer predators was placed in 1907. As a result of this bounty, the predators population reduced dramatically and in a span of 15 years the deer population increased to 100,000. However, the increase of the deer population exhausted the deer's food capacity of the plateau and in the winter of 1924/1925 nearly 60 percent of the deer population died. The environmental policy to place a bounty on the deer predators had the immediate effect to increase the deer population and the creation of the long term problem to destroy both the deer population as well as the natural balance of the environment.
	Protestors Sunday, january 26, 2003 in Davos Switzerland. (REUTERS/Sergio Morases)
What I and many other concerned people understand, is that most public policies of governments are as bad as the environmental policy to place a bounty on deer predators to increase the deer population in the Kaibab Plateau. As I refer to President Bush Inc's determination to wage war against Iraq to liberate both the Iraqi people and the Iraqi oil so I think about the bigger related long term problems of energy oil consumption, democracy and violence in Iraq, in the Middle East, in the United States and all over the world.
	Mario deSantis
References:
	Building Models in Ecology and Environment Politechnic University of Catalonia http://www.catunesco.upc.es/cursos/angles.htm
	Young , Chris, A history of the Kaibab Deer,
	Aldo Leopold and the Kaibab Deer Story - Lessons in Forest Ecology http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/class_info/f311/leopold.htm
	Mammalian Predators: Key Ecological Actors, Defenders of Wildlife http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/wolf/predfact.html
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