When Cute Deer Go Bad

NY Times ^ | March 20, 2005 | MASTHEAD EDITORIAL

[null and void]

*shrug* I've never tried cuy, myself.

My ancestors came from Europe, dormouse was considered a delicacy...

[Vision]

Go BOWHUNTERS!

[SamAdams76]

A few mornings ago, I saw SEVEN deer running through my neighborhood here in Massachusetts. I have never seen so many deer in one place before. This deer thing is getting out of hand.

[SamAdams76]

You are on the right track. The easiest way to control deer is to develop an appetite for venison. Once people start eating it and looking for it in their supermarkets and restaurants, surplus deer will quickly disappear.

If you can't beat it, eat it.

[muir_redwoods]

CT is very densely populated on average but I'm in the eastern half and there are acres and acres of wooded, hilly terrain. We have coyotes, bear, lots of deer and reports, so far unofficial, of cougars. Some nights when I try to put my dogs out they won't go, I listen and I can hear the howling. If I go out with them they will go but I do carry a pistol.

[Delphinium]

Maybe they should be properly domesticated and turned into farm animals.

That would be harder than worth it.

Have you ever tried to keep deer out of a fenced garden?

[capecodderathome]

By far, the most important reason of all to reduce the deer population,(if you live anywhere in the Northeast); is that they are the primary carriers of the deer tick, the insidious carrier of LYME DISEASE. Lyme claims 17,000 new victims each year. Truely, a horrible disease. Yes, by all means reduce the deer herds.

[MarkL]

Actually, I did a google search, and it seems that there is an elk farm in Liberty, MO. "North Slope Elk Farm."

That might be it... I could have been wrong about the critters. I didn't think that they were big enough to be elk, but maybe the ones I saw were juviniles.

Mark

[Delphinium]

And every night I let the cat (a huge Tom) out, and every morning for three years he's at the door in the morning

You need a kiddy door. Maybe then he would bring you presents, (dead rabbits, dead birds, dead mice, etc.) like mine does in the night.

[R. Scott]

The top photo reminds me of a short road trip my late wife took with one of her girl friends. They made it nearly to the Carolina/Virginia border up in the mountains. Just after my dear wife commented that she hoped they’d see a deer – one came through the windshield. No one (but the deer) was hurt, although the car (big old Buick) was totaled and their pants and car seats were wet. The driver’s head was bracketed by the antlers.
They decided the Sheriff’s deputy who helped them could have the deer.

[R. Scott]

Kentucky Fried rat?

[R. Scott]

I just don't want to do that, while I could be sleeping in a nice, warm, comfortable bed.

Back up in Crawford County, Pennsylvania the locals go deer hunting a bit different. After a good breakfast, pick up a shotgun – only city folks use rifles – and set on the porch for a few minutes with your coffee. While sipping coffee, decide which deer you want. Shoot deer.
Note: If it doesn't dress out to at least 200 pounds, don’t mention it to anyone.

[sully777]

Re: Bambi.

My dad used to joke that a better Disney movie would have been

The Rutting of Bambi's Dad. No doubt the rating would have been XXX for nudity, strong sexual content, and gratuitous violence.

NY Times is a city paper with schleps wringing their city hands while most of America west of the Hudson find the solution to the deer problem very tastey.

[wildbill]

Regarding the NYT recommending removal of feed since starvation is painless: Excellent analysis.

I was a little uncomfortable with the birth control idea. Not that I'm a Catholic, but I had some doubts about our athletic ability to run them down and insert diaphrams and/or condoms. Of course, it WOULD have the secondary benefit of limiting Antlered Aids.

[Salamander]

If only we could get them to nibble a little garlic and onion right before the trigger is squeezed......;)

Years ago I discovered that -deer- were stealing all the sunflower seeds from my bird's feed.
They'd just hop a 4 foot fence from a standstill, help themselves and hop back over.

[Salamander]

The DNR is suppressing cougar reports in a lot of states, apparently.
People west of me have literally spotted them yards away and the DNR denies that it's even possible.

[Salamander]

My Ibizan Hounds used to present me with -live- gifts of mice.
The first time, I thought my old girl had a string hanging out of her mouth so opened her yap to find a live, very freaked-out mouse lying perfectly still on her tongue.
I thought surely it was dead and took it from her and the mouse snapped out of his stupor and hit the floor running.

One Doberman I had would bring me the heads of woodrats.
Never the body...just the head.

I could never decide if she had an "Alfredo Garcia" or "John the Baptist" kind of thing...;))

[farmfriend]

(they don't come into town unless they are hungry or have been chased out of the hills by competitors).

There was one killed here in Citrus Heights that had a belly full of porcupine needles. You can't tell me that wasn't a hungry cat. As it was there were two cats, this one a young male, and another who was getting the local dog population.

[Terriergal]

White-tailed deer are a plague.

Giant rabbits. And they taste good.

[Koblenz]

Lyme is indeed a big reason to thin the deer population. Connecticut, one of the least religious states in the country, still doesn't allow hunting or selling alcohol on Sunday.

Ridgefield, CT, a town of 23,000 in Fairfield County, recently bought an incinerator to burn all the deer run over by cars in town.