Phil Gutis's Blog
Deer in the Mirror
October 11, 2007
Posted by Phil Gutis in Living Sustainably
You know you're an animal welfare lunatic when your husband calls to say that he just had a close encounter between his car and a deer and the first words out of your mouth are: "Did the deer survive?"
I quickly came to my senses and checked on his well being and that of the dogs who were in the car with him. Luckily all are well, the damage to the car was fairly limited and a later drive-by found no deer lying by the side of the road.
Ever since we moved to Solebury, PA, where the deer roam in herds of dozens, we knew a collision was just a matter of time. And things get worse in the fall when it is darker and the deer are mating. You literally never know what is going to come bounding across road at you.
It doesn't make matters any better that one of our neighbors actually feeds the deer. A delivery guy once told us that his next stop was our neighbor's 7-acre gated compound where he would replenish her feed stock. He told us that she puts out 40 pounds of food a day. Forty pounds! Feeding the deer is apparently is illegal but no one has been willing to fight her.
The deer population has gotten so out of control that our township recently hired sharpshooters to thin the herd. The thought drives me crazy but so does the idea that we are always fearful of being hit or hitting a large four-legged critter while on the road. I was also saddened the other day when our neighbor waved to me from across the driveway and through our brand new deer fencing that circles our property. Suddenly I felt less-than-neighborly. It was an awkward moment to say the least.
Maybe its time for me to put my lunacy to good use and take on my deer-feeding neighbor. It might seem counter intuitive to fight her desire to feed the creatures that we both apparently love, but there's little doubt that stopping her would be good for the native plants in the area, for the human population that is constantly endangered by deer-and-car encounters and, truthfully, for the deer herd itself, which I'm sure is being thrown off balance by her feeding.
Anybody know a good animal rights attorney in the Philadelphia area?
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Comments
Andrew Wetzler — Oct 11 2007 01:57 PM
Phil:
We have a similar deer problem out here in Ohio--including calls for sharpshooters which, thankfully, most of our neighbors have resisted.
But what we don't have is someone actually feeding them, which can't be good for anyone (deer included).
But if your neighbor were to stop feeding the deer suddenly (and especially now that it is almost winter) I think many of them might starve. Sadly, that may make a sharpshooter necessary.