I had this discussion with my mom just the other night. She's just moved into a retirement home that's adjacent to a college campus, and deliberately chose the campus side so she can enjoy the natural woods that the college deliberately doesn't "maintain" in order to keep the area more natural. (i.e., when trees fall, they're left in situ to rot, just as they would in a natural wood.)
Two years ago the college was going to have a controlled deer hunt (with bows and arrows, I think) in the winter while students were gone in order to limit the deer herd, which had grown to unsustainable levels. Students (and others, of course) got wind of it and protested and they called off the hunt.
So the other night Mom said, "It's terrible that they don't feed the deer in the winter." (Parroting an opinion of someone else in the building, I imagine, since she's only lived there two weeks.) And I said, "But that will only maintain the already overburdening status quo and encourage more deer. And undermine the intention to keep the area in its natural state." This campus is "inside the beltway" in an urban area, and if they don't control numbers, we'll see the deer running across highways, out into major boulevards, and *that* will wreak havoc as well.
There's no easy answer. Either they allow a hunt, or let them starve. Either way, it's painful to watch, but necessary, IMHO.
Sue