There are lots of deer around our neighborhood. We see them just about every time we drive in the evening on Technology Parkway, which goes through an industrial park developed on Berry College land. We see their bodies fairly often where cars have hit them, and have even seen one as it was hit. I hit one myself further out Huffaker Road. Mine survived long enough to jump up and run away. Several hang out near our house. Some of them have decided that our shrubs are a buffet, like they did a few years ago during the worst part of our drought.
Deer season for firearms opened here in October and lasts until January 1. Berry College, which owns 27,000 acres, has three short firearm seasons with 1000 permits for the first two and 750 for the third. Berry College extends along Lavender Mountain fairly close to us. It’s more than a stone’s throw away, but certainly within a bullet’s range.
Aside from the damage the deer cause our shrubbery, I am pretty much neutral on deer hunting. I don’t hunt and don’t really understand the appeal, but that’s a personal shortcoming rather than a judgment. Several of my coworkers hunt deer and they seem to be pretty normal people.
I’m sure most deer hunters are responsible citizens, but this area seems to have a significant population of a different kind. I mentioned seeing partially butchered deer carcasses dumped along Fouche Gap Road. I have seen them in prior deer seasons, but this season is the worst. I counted five confirmed and a possible sixth so far this year. There are four (or possibly five) within two miles on Fouche Gap Road and one on the few hundred yards that Wildlife Trail extends from our house to its dead end.
Apparently the practice is to take some meat off the main body of the carcass, leaving the rib cage exposed and the legs and the head untouched. Then the remains are tossed out of the back of a truck. Probably a truck, but who knows? Maybe these people haul dead deer in the back seats of their cars.
All I know for sure is that I don’t want to meet these people in the woods. Or any other place, for that matter.
I never quite get the appeal of deer-hunting either. My nephew in Virginia, who is an otherwise gentle and spiritual young man really enjoys getting out and killing deer in season. It’s an interesting thing, considering he also has spent a lot of time at a Meher Baba retreat, meditates, and plays a good folk guitar. I always think desperate hunger should precede hunting for food, but now it seems more about sport than a real need for sustenance. You remind me of the one time we found a deer carcass on our road in Port Townsend, WA that had been left intact except for the meat around the rib cage. Quite a horrific sight. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to run into those “hunters” either.
Some of my coworkers have talked about their hunts, and it seems to get them really excited. But I would have a hard time handling what they describe. Have you ever seen the movie The Last of the Mohicans? It opens with a hunting scene. After Hawkeye and Chingachgook kill an elk (or something), they apologize to it for having to do it. That sounds like a more balanced approach to hunting.
Yeah, I even say thank you to the chickens I get frozen from the organic grocery.
One bad thing about tossing deer remains onto the shoulder of the road is that they attract scavengers. Many birds of prey and other animals are opportunists and can be injured or killed by a vehicle traveling past the attractive carcass.
And another thing, which if anything is worse, is that lead particles from bullets cause neurological problems and a terrible death for the wildlife that ingest them.
Pardon me for preaching to the choir here.
I wish responsible hunters who use all they can and bury the rest would teach the less informed and motivated the ways of the woods.
Minnie — I agree. Unfortunately, it seems that there is a continuing population of irresponsible hunters. I met a Berry College game warden about 25 years ago who said a poacher once dumped a deer carcass in her driveway just to show her he could get away with it.
Yep. Revenge dumping. We drove down in the semi-country for Thanksgiving dinner with friends. Just before we pulled into their long driveway we passed six or eight black vultures dining on a deer carcass dumped in the ditch. Some of the “hunters” there aren’t crazy about our friends who have complained about irresponsible behavior.