The Truth About GonaCon
For those of you that did not read about GonaCon in Quality Whitetails, anti-hunters are expected to be all over this in 2010. GonaCon is a newly registered birth-control drug for deer and is the first to be approved for use in free-ranging whitetails. It does the following:
A single injection is effective for 2 to 4 years in deer (and various other wildlife animals).
They are currently working on a formulation that can be delivered orally by mixing it with food sources (like corn), but it is still several years off.
Here is what PETA is not going to tell you:
It has to be administered by hand rather than darting. If a human female accidentally came into contact with an errant dart, they would also become infertile. Administering the dose by hand means trapping each deer and that increases labor, increases cost ($500 - $1000 per deer), and decreases the effective area that can be treated. The vaccine does not work on about 10% of the deer for whatever reason. So, it is estimated that 80 – 100% of the does would need to be injected just to freeze the population growth (not reduce it).
One side effect is abscesses at the injection site (some abscesses have grown to the size of the baseball).
If bucks are treated with this vaccine, they have reduced testosterone. Bucks do not exhibit normal rutting behavior or neck swelling. Antlers can either remain in velvet, or they harden and are shed up to 6 weeks earlier than normal.
To top it off, the vaccine is listed as a pesticide, so they would be reducing what we consider a big game animal to the equivalent of a rat.
Anticipate anti-hunting groups pushing hard for this in urban areas first to get things started.