Hunting and wildlife management in the U.S. are heavily influenced by hunting interests, bent on perpetuating hunting and trying to persuade the public that hunting is not only necessary but noble. Sort out the hunting myths from the hunting facts.

01 of 07 Deer Need to Be Hunted Because They Are Overabundant nathan hager / Getty Images "Overabundant" is not a scientific word and does not indicate an overpopulation of deer. The term is used by hunters as well as state wildlife management agencies in an effort to convince the public that deer must be hunted, even though they are not biologically overpopulated and even though the deer population is kept artificially inflated. If the deer ever do overpopulate an area, their numbers will reduce naturally through starvation, disease and lower fertility. The strong will survive. This is true of all animals, and this is how evolution works.

02 of 07 Hunters Paid for Wild Lands Predrag Vuckovic / Getty Images Hunters in the United States claim that they pay for wild lands, but the truth is that they pay for only a very small portion of it. About 90 percent of the lands in our National Wildlife Refuges have always been government-owned, so no funds were required to purchase those lands. Hunters have paid for approximately three-tenths of a percent (0.3%) of the lands in our National Wildlife Refuges. State wildlife management lands are partially funded by hunting license sales but also funded by monies from the states' general budgets as well as Pittman-Robertson Act funds, which come from an excise tax on the sales of firearms and ammunition. The Pittman-Robertson funds get distributed to states and may be used for land acquisition, but these funds come mostly from non-hunters because most gun owners do not hunt.

03 of 07 Hunters Keep the Deer Population in Check Eduards Vinniks / Eyeem / Getty Images Because of the way that state wildlife agencies manage deer, hunters keep the deer population high. State wildlife management agencies make some or all of their money from sales of hunting licenses. Many of them have mission statements that explicitly say they are to provide recreational hunting opportunities. In order to keep hunters happy and sell hunting licenses, states artificially boost the deer population by clearcutting forests in order to provide the edge habitat favored by deer and by leasing lands to farmers and requiring that the farmers grow deer-preferred crops.

04 of 07 Hunting Reduces Lyme Disease Lauree Feldman / Getty Images Hunting does not reduce incidents of Lyme disease, but pesticides targeting deer ticks have proven to be very effective against Lyme disease. Lyme disease is spread to humans by deer ticks, but Lyme disease comes from mice, not deer, and the ticks spread to humans mainly through mice, not deer. Neither the American Lyme Disease Foundation nor the Lyme Disease Foundation recommends hunting to prevent Lyme disease. Furthermore, even if Lyme disease were spread by deer, hunting would not reduce Lyme disease because hunting creates an incentive for state wildlife management agencies to increase the deer population.

05 of 07 Hunting Is Necessary and Takes the Place of Natural Predators Tyler Stableford / Getty Images Hunters are very different from natural predators. Because technology gives hunters such an advantage, we do not see hunters targeting the small, sick and old individuals. Hunters seek out the largest, strongest individuals with the largest antlers or the biggest horns. This has led to an evolution in reverse, where the population becomes smaller and weaker. This effect has already been observed in elephants and bighorn sheep. Hunting also destroys natural predators. Predators like wolves and bears are routinely killed in an attempt to boost populations of prey animals such as elk, moose, and caribou for human hunters.

06 of 07 Hunting Is Safe Onfokus / Getty Images Hunters like to point out that hunting has a very low fatality rate for non-participants, but one thing they don't consider is that a sport should not have a fatality rate for non-participants. While sports like football or swimming may have a higher injury rate or fatality rate for participants, football and swimming do not endanger innocent bystanders a half mile away. Only hunting endangers the entire community.