Pretty much. With no hunters thinning the herds, they bred like mad, built up huge populations. Eventually, when a bad winter came, and food was scarce, almost the entire herd starved to death.

BTW - this doesn't have to happen because of a lack of predators. Take the snowshoe hare for instance. The biggest predator of the snowshoe hare is the lynx and the bobcat. They follow a natural pattern in which populations of snowshoe hares build. This, of course, provides a good source of food for the bobcats, etc., and their numbers grow. At some point, the snowshoe hare population reaches a tipping point, they are decimated by disease or starvation. When that happens the population of bobcat and lynx also crashes.

Indeed! Nature is pretty good at balancing everything out.
If those pesky humans would just keep their hands out of things!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Makes sense -- I'm just not sure if a 98% die-off is usually Nature's way... But I'm sure it sometimes is. I wish Nature would do something about the deer here. Meanwhile, I need to be more careful about what I plant, I guess!

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Amy

Actually, a 98% die-off in a specific area is a little extreme, but not that much. If all the deer died off, they'd eventually move back into the area from surrounding areas. Add hunters to the equation and not only do you not get the extreme die-offs but, if it should happen, man moves deer back into the area, greatly shortening the recovery time.

In general, man cares about the welfare of wildlife. Nature could care less if they all vanish.

Absolutely.

Interesting conversation, thanks.

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Amy