Oh I see I’d misunderstood your point. I thought you were concerned about lowering the number of warble flies. This policy wouldn’t lower the number of deer—it would maintain the population at the same level. This is for the sake of avoiding unwanted ecological effects. If you think it’s better to have more deer, fair enough—but then you’ve got to weigh that against the very uncertain ecological consequences of having more deer (probably something like what happened in Yellowstone Nationa Park: fewer young trees, more open fields, fewer animals that depend on those trees, more erosion etc)
Oh I see I’d misunderstood your point. I thought you were concerned about lowering the number of warble flies. This policy wouldn’t lower the number of deer—it would maintain the population at the same level. This is for the sake of avoiding unwanted ecological effects. If you think it’s better to have more deer, fair enough—but then you’ve got to weigh that against the very uncertain ecological consequences of having more deer (probably something like what happened in Yellowstone Nationa Park: fewer young trees, more open fields, fewer animals that depend on those trees, more erosion etc)
Oh, ok, I agree, if the number of deer is the same after as counterfactually, it seems plausibly net positive yes.