Hunting has always been a way of life in American culture. The Indians and our ancestors hunted to survive. Now in the nineties it is not seen as a lifestyle, but as a bloodlust. Is it necessary or, as mentioned before, bloodlust? What most people don't know is that without it the ever-growing population of deer and other animals could be devastating to the environment. People should realize that without hunting animal populations are in danger. Hunting is useful for sustaining animal populations and controlling problems created by overpopulation. Is hunting really necessary to control wild populations? This is one of the many questions that environmentalists and animal rights activists around the world are asking. In an article in The Sciences, author Wendy Marston talks about the decline in hunters across the nation. It found that only 6 percent of Americans go hunting today, 4 percent less than a decade ago. According to her "from an environmental point of view, unfortunately this change has done more harm than good(12)". Animal overpopulation in some areas is destroying nature. In some overpopulated areas, food is becoming scarce and animals have started eating endangered plants and other vegetation that they normally wouldn't. The animals also cause many problems along our country's highways and for many farmers. In an article appearing in US News and World Report, author Stephen Budiansky recounts a similar situation in Wisconsin. He says: "rare orchids and deciduous and hemlock forests have not been able to reproduce for fifty years (85)." It tells of botanist William Alverson of the University of Wisconsin who studied Wisconsin's old-growth forests for many years. In his studies, Alverson found that dominant hemlocks and white cedars failed to reproduce. When asked what the cause of the problem was, he replied, “deer simply eat all the seedlings that emerge. The changes caused by deer are so slow that they are not noticeable to anyone driving by, but regionally, the hemlock forests are becoming increasingly rare(85)." An example of what hunting can do in these types of situations is shown by looking at the Menominee Indian Reservation in northern Wisconsin. It boasts an extensive hunting program. They allow hunting in and out of season, which has kept the deer population at about eight deer per square mile, compared to twenty per square mile in other forests and up to 200 in some hard-hit suburbs..