>>264595in the short term, no the environment could not survive. Have you seen what happens when deer get overpopulated? See pic-sorry, it's a slide from a powerpoint presentation I did a while back, only place I could find the image- Top right; The fence keeps the deer out of a test area, bam vegetation grows! Naturally, deer would have predators around us, however, as they don't eat livestock (or grandmothers) deer aren't persecuted in the same way wolves are. with wolves basically gone, deer breed like rabbits (females can get pregnant before they turn a year old.) and quickly devour all the vegetation they can reach, they then patrol the area in number, eating anything that tries to grow. For a while this works, until the big trees start dieing, and there are few (if any) saplings left to replace them, the deer's food stops growing (no seeds!) and they all starve. Yay!
(other images - deer browse line in algonquin park, that's how high the deer can reach when the lake freezes. other two are just deer eating trees.)
