What are the environmental effects of deer culling?

Personally, I don't agree with any kind of culling. I believe that in the end mother nature takes care of the over population of a species. However some conservationists believe that high numbers of deer damage forests, as they strip trees including the young saplings and therefore the forests are unable to regenerate. Of course, if the forests were not fragmented by the effect of the human populaton with our towns and infrastructure, this would not be a problem. Wolves keep down deer numbers and remove the necessity for culling. The wolves generally pick off the very young/old or injured deer.Here in the UK the wolves were culled to extinction many years ago and now deer numbers are man managed. Maybe we should look at the problem at source and cull a few humans!

You obviously don't live in the country. Deer are so overpopulated there is not a day goes by that you don't see another dead one on the road. They make insurance rates higher, they cause accidents (ever seen what it can do to a motorcyclist?) they cause crop damage. Plus if some disease came along that culled them all, at least around here it would cause an over population of flies, coyote, and the smell.....

It depends...hunters always want to go for the strongest in the herd, while in nature(wolves) hunters always go for the weakest. Its more environmentally friendly to reintroduce or help repopulate its predators.