Expert: Stephen Vantassel - 4/30/2007

Question
why do hunters need special seasons to hunt why cant they just leave animals alone because animals can control there own population without us


Answer
Not sure what you mean by special seasons.  
Hunting seasons are established to protect the resource. You want to reduce the likelihood of animal being killed during the time when it is raising young, as you could substantially reduce wildlife populations and threaten their continued prosperity.

If you mean by special seasons those situations where hunters are allowed to hunt outside of the traditional hunting season, then those are usually granted to reduce a wildlife population to tolerable levels.

Failure to properly manage wildlife populations can and does result in deer strikes to cars (which have killed people), ravaged crops, denuded environments etc.

It sounds great to say that animal populations will self-regulate. But that is just a euphemism for they will die of starvation and disease. Predation, despite all the hype, never keeps wildlife in the balance that people think it does. Predation is important, but it rarely resolves the cultural carrying capacity issues. Land capacity is the amount of animals the land can support. Cultural carrying capacity is the amount of animals in an area that people will tolerate which is usually much lower than the land carrying capacity.

Hunting and trapping are important ways wildlife biologists maintain wildlife populations and they provide an excellent opportunity for people to reconnect with the land without destroying it. Unfortunately, as people become more detached from the land we will continue to bull doze it rather than appreciate and utilize this important renewable resource.