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Prudent-Fly-8299 t1_jd4ok75 wrote

Reply to comment by Generic_Mustard in We need urban food forests in Pittsburgh by fadedrosebud

You talking about the deer in Brighton Heights?

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EllaMinnow t1_jd7rj6x wrote

Or Squirrel Hill. Or Greenfield. Or Hazelwood. Anywhere near Schenley and Frick Parks, I suspect, since naturalists say they've basically razed the edible park vegetation and are starving so they're roaming the streets in search of food and getting hit by cars.

I tried a vegetable garden the first year we after we bought our Squirrel Hill South house and realized about halfway into the season that I was basically the personal chef for a family of groundhogs.

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Generic_Mustard t1_jd5199x wrote

Yes!

We also have a lot of groundhogs, some turkeys, raccoons, and not sure what else and I don't exactly know who eats what other than deer, which will eat nearly anything!

Side note, I love watching the turkeys!!!

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PennSaddle t1_jd5zoen wrote

Lots of us hunters would love to help solve this problem. Ha

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Prudent-Fly-8299 t1_jd61i0u wrote

I know I’ve contemplated going in the woods behind Brighton heights with my bow haha

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Radek_Of_Boktor t1_jd6jaop wrote

Same out here in Penn Hills! I asked my neighbor if they'd tell on me if I "took care of the problem" myself with my bow.

Her response? "Oh, but the deer are so pretty!"

😒 ...

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rippletroopers t1_jd8ehnf wrote

Oh you don’t want to eat those deer anyway. The bio accumulation of an herbivore in this town has got to be INTENSE.

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Radek_Of_Boktor t1_jd8g687 wrote

Ah, I hadn't thought about that. That's a shame.

I actually didn't know anything about bio accumulation until I was reading about it further in this thread, but in my head I had only applied it to plants.

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rippletroopers t1_jd8h4dk wrote

Unfortunately grazers are worse than plants, and predators are worse than grazers. Every time you go up a rung on the food chain it gets worse and worse. It’s yet another reason that the deer population is as outrageously out of control as it is.

Fruit from plants is kinda the only safe thing if you’re growing it in unsafe soil.

It’s tragic what a century of industry has done to the ecology in this region.

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fadedrosebud OP t1_jd9gg4y wrote

And what about wasting disease? I'm not really knowledgeable about eating game, but I just get this feeling that it might be polluted and possibly diseased.

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PennSaddle t1_jd6k928 wrote

I’ve asked around Penn Hills before with the same response.

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