Deer Control

It has been a snowy winter in the aptly named Stormville, and the wildlife have had a hard time foraging. I have taken to feeding them "Deer Chow" and cracked corn and have counted as many as a hundred deer visitors in a day (I don't know if these are 100 distinct deer or if some deer come back for seconds and thirds to the all you can eat buffet). I am able to count them easily since Jesse Lou Baggett, my Ruthenian Shepherd, becomes enraged every time a deer drops by and begs to be let out to chase them. Because I love him, I occasionally let him drive them away (they are on the other side of the fence, and he can't actually catch them).

I have been criticized by some deer haters who struggle with having their flowers and other vegetation eaten by the deer (we somehow have been spared this so far, perhaps due to the presence of the dogs). Although I think that feeding the deer provides an alternative to their gardens, they may have a point in that marginally more deer may make it thorough the winter due to my intercession. I should let the deer starve to death, say my critics, or even kill a few of them. I like the deer and want to encourage them to visit. Selfish b******ds think only of themselves and their gardens. And I definitely do not want anyone hunting in my residential neighborhood. We do not need gun-toting drunks running around in the woods behind my house.

A better and more natural solution would be to reintroduce large predators into the neighborhood. We have fox and some coyote, but these are apparently not large or numerous enough to handle the excess deer population. What is wanted are some wolves or big cats that can take down a deer. That would help to preserve my neighbors gardens and maintain a suitable deer population.

But when I suggest this, once again their selfishishness comes through. Now they're worried that their children will be eaten by the predators! There is no satisfying some people. In the long run, more children will be killed in car accidents involving deer than by large predators, and the handful of children taken by wolves or mountain lions would be a small price to pay for deer control. Just do the math! Moreover, I imagine only the most negligent parents would have children eaten by large predators, and these children would probably have died from some other instance of parental negligence anyway.