seems to be an issue on Nextdoor and as you can imagine it's chaos.
Truth is I'd just rather they left them alone and let Darwin take care of things. Part of the reason there are so many of them is because we have not had any hard winters in a few years and they've managed to eat well enough to get pretty fat and sassy. Hard winters tear through the deer population. The population has its ups and downs. Nature is like that.
Besides I like looking at them. I learn a lot from them. I look at their coats and can get a pretty good idea of what the winter will bring. If their coats have a lot of white in them we'll probably get a lot of snow. At least that's been my observation over the last several years.
Actually the reason a lot of people gripe about the deer is because they plant flowers and bushes that are the deer equivalent of T-bone steaks and naturally the deer eat them. What do they expect?
They've never eaten my marigolds. They don't like them apparently. I guess I chose wisely. Then again I asked around beforehand.
The subject of trapping them came up and that brings visions of a suburban woman trying to deal with a panic stricken 250 pound animal caught in a trap and in the process of hurting itself. In some cases you'd have a pair of 250 pound creatures in total panic.
Needless to say, the thought of firearms was out of the question but then archery came up. It's a viable way of culling deer herds in a lot of residential neighborhoods.
The problem is that too many Karens were afraid of hundreds of arrows whizzing by which is not the case. Then again, if you're worried about it keep the kids in for a few days.
The truth of the matter is that one needs a special permit to be a suburban archer and there's a lot of training and proof of marksmanship required and testing. You just can't plunk down your $21.97 license fee, go to Dick's, buy a bow and start killing the King's venison. You have to prove yourself to be competent. You also have to be able to work with the terrain. A lot of non hunters and for that matter, hunters don't understand terrain.
I could point an M-60 machine gun out my dining room window and assuming I kept the barrel level I could safely empty a 100 round belt out of it. My neighbor's home and life would be in no danger whatsoever as the 100 rounds would go straight into an embankment.
Safe or not, I don't recommend it as the screeching, moaning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth would be epic.
Of course someone would find an 'expert' (often self appointed) that would carry on about how dangerous it is and so on and so forth but rather than admit that in that particular instance it would be safe he'd likely make the blanket statement that it was the most perilous thing in the world.
Truth is likely he'd feel (often rightly so) that if he said it was safe 'with a proper backstop' some imbecile would use a sheet of 1/4 inch plywood and would wind up shattering a toilet that someone's great grandmother was sitting on...or a whole lot worse. Truth is, a lot of laws are made because of stupid and irresponsible people.
On the other hand I could probably shoot a Daisy Red Ryder out my back window with no problems and do no one any damage or injury. I say Red Ryder because I could certainly not do this safely with a .22.
If I did this to my front or bedroom window the BB gun would likely break a neighbor's window or put someone's eye out.
Still, listening to people trying to sell archery as a viable way to control the deer population becomes a NIMBY issue. Not in my back yards. Some of the blubbering was beyond me. Someone claimed that if we don't do something there won't be a single tree left in the area in 30 years.
What? Are the deer going to grow tree surgeon spurs and start climbing oaks to eat the leaves off of them? That one sounded like someone that believes in Covid, Global Warming, Santa Claus, gasoline engines and the Tooth Fairy to me.
Some woman was all worried. "What if the deer dies in my backyard and the hunter wants to drag it off?"
That one got a "Yeah, so? What do you want him to do? Leave it there to rot and draw scavengers? He's not going to hurt your yard."
Or the guy that said he didn't want to watch a bunch of hunters on 4 wheelers chasing around a bunch of wounded deer.
Yeah. Right. Guys in 4 wheelers roaring through a residential neighborhood. Ain't gonna happen because they know that if they do it's game over. Besides in most residential neighborhoods it's a ticketable offense.
Trained hunters that know what they are doing are probably the best way. They'll know which neighborhoods are safe to hunt and which are not. Some are not safe because of the way they are laid out and the terrain but a lot of suburbia is safe to archery hunt on by trained hunters.
Most hunters like that look at things a little differently. They don't look at the animal, it's size, rack or whatever. They look at the shot itself and how they made it safe.
It often really is a viable way to cull the herd... if that's what you want to do.
Of course, being somewhat of a Darwinist I simply think that it is a pretty much self solving problem because sooner of later we're going to have a hard winter or two and the problem will solve itself like it has for centuries.
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