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Comment by _gmnw | Hacker News Reader

From the article it sounds like invasive species, plus the fact that we have royally screwed up the local ecosystem.

For instance — white-tailed deer are growing exponentially, eating all the underbrush and outcompeting other animals, and they have no/few natural predators left.

I agree that not much has changed since the 80s, I think it's just catching up to us now.

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> white-tailed deer are growing exponentially

Yes, and worse, some (uninformed people) see the growth of any species as a positive sign that nature is bouncing back, or whatever. When in reality, ecosystems are hugely out of balance and the vast growth of one species is just a spasm as the system shakes itself apart. The knock-on effect of one species's sudden growth spurt may take decades to play out in the shadows, but it is almost assuredly not a good thing.

Ripple effects.

Humans have ruined a lot of ecosystems that had a natural balance. Wolf culling being one of the most obvious examples of our cause and effect.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...

White-tailed deer have only recently recovered from over-hunting and returned to their pre-colonization population levels.[1] Do you have a source that frames their growth as exponential?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer#Population_a...

Apologies, I'm based in Pennsylvania and it's definitely more noticeable here. I expect it will become more apparent elsewhere too.

We're at 3x the total population that existed when europeans started settling here, and without an appropriate way to cull the herd I don't see that changing. We have milder winters (so no starvation), less interest in hunting, and again a lack of natural predators.

https://extension.psu.edu/white-tailed-deer

The Hawaiian deer population follows boom and bust cycles. They were introduced for hunting purposes, have no natural predators, and tend to mess up the ecosystem so badly via overgrazing that they end up dying off and then recovering.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/molokais-fabled-axis-deer-...

I have no idea about exponential growth outside of Hawaii, though.

Deer population growth during that recovery period (of white tail deer at least) seems pretty exponential. [1] However in the absence of natural predators it seems that disease and human culling have pretty effectively kept their population to stay at about pre-colonial levels rather than continuing upward to the point of over population.

[1] http://www.deerfriendly.com/decline-of-deer-populations

plus the parasites that they spread are decimating moose populations yearly

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