We recently moved out of Hunterdon County, NJ - that's the part of the state near Bethlehem PA, where there are still trees. It's rural by NJ standards, with 5

We recently moved out of Hunterdon County, NJ - that's the part of the state near Bethlehem PA, where there are still trees. It's rural by NJ standards, with 5 acre zoning, etc. But that's perfect for deer - there's enough plantlife (including our own gardens) to feed them, but the houses are still close enough together that there's really nowhere safe to hunt. The result is an explosion of deer, to the point where you can't walk across the front yard without being careful of stepping on their landmines. They're also a serious danger to motorists - my wife had three deer accidents inside of two years. This article doesn't mention another effect on the environment that I've observed in NJ, and also at a cabin that we have in NY's Catskills - that is, the rise of coyotes and "coydog" hybrids. Although these predators are shy and rarely seen, you can frequently hear them yipping and howling. One thing that impressed me about the rise of the coyotes was a few Christmases ago. On Christmas Eve, a deer that had apparently been struck by a car dragged itself to our front yard and died. Not wanting to wake up Christmas morning to that, I tied a rope around the body and dragged it way off into the woods. A week later, my wife was curious about what had become of it and we walked back to look. Just one week after being dumped there, the only sign there had been a deer at all was a spine attached to a pelvis, and a bunch of ribs. One week farther on, even those were gone. So it looks to me like, while the rise of deer is damaging the plant ecology below it, it's also changing the predator ecology above as well.