Deer Get Birth Control

It seems that Cornell University, in upstate New York was over-run with whitetail deer.

After years of bitter debate, Cayuga Heights decided that the deer population would be controlled through sterilization at enormous expense:

Yeah, but deer are mobile.

 The Cayuga Heights deer control was mostly a failure because, you know, deer move around, so sterilizing deer in Cayuga Heights didn’t prevent new deer from coming into the area.  And so on.

It didn't help the deer population, which seemed to be stable.

 Basically, if you were a deer on campus, you got so much free birth control it would make Sandra Fluke jealous; if you were a deer off campus, you got served for dinner.

But, because the does were sterile, they noticed an increase of more aggressive bucks, looking to find a mating partner.

Under normal conditions, all female whitetails go into heat within several weeks of each other and become pregnant at around the same time. This annual event is called the rut. However, if a doe is not impregnated during the rut, it will enter heat again the following month and again the month after that. Because the ligated does were unable to become pregnant, they continued to produce chemical signals of readiness to reproduce — signals that can attract bucks from miles away. 

Well, duh.  They finally decided to try limited hunting, archery, because guns on campus are so.... you know.

 “In winter 2013, our camera survey indicated there were 100 to 105 deer on campus. After the nuisance deer removal in 2014, the camera estimate was about 58 deer remaining on campus,” Curtis said.“Because the bow hunters are volunteers, this program is essentially cost-neutral,” Blossey said.

But, this is Ivy League, and an effective, cost neutral program simply can't be allowed, they're back to deer surgery.

Even after the surgical removal of their ovaries, one of the three deer became pregnant again. It is not clear how this was possible. One supposition is that some ovarian tissue may have escaped the scalpel and regrown into a functioning ovary.

Heh!