“Do, a dear, a female deer…”
Every time I hear those words from the popular Sound of Music score, I think of the not-so-dear deer that have taken up suburban living.
Smack in our front lawn.
Mind you, we are quite a bit away from a county park or woodlands that might normally harbor these animals, but they apparently want to forgo their natural habitat for a more enjoyable lifestyle in the yards of suburban householders.
ON THE LAWN!
The other night---at about 8:15 p.m., no less---we walked out of our front door to find FIVE deer sleeping in our yard. A few were on the sidewalk. Just envision a few neighbors walking down the street to come upon this quintet of animals blocking the sidewalk.
Mind you, just a few days previously I opened the door at about 5:30 a.m. to walk down the front sidewalk and retrieve the newspapers and what do I see? Three of those creatures having breakfast on our grass. I tried to shoo them away and they did not bother to move, as if they are paid tenants on the property.
Deer…deer…they are all over the place. And their droppings (are they called pellets?) are littering our lawns.
Ironically this was far from the case in Pennsylvania where I grew up. My father and his friends actually had a hunting lodge in the Poconos and every year went off with their guns in search of deer. They would return with NONE. Then one day a deer walked down the road while the men were sitting on the porch and one shot brought that animal down---and after work by a local taxidermist, that deer head became the prime focus of the small lodge.
I lack a hunting rifle, or any other weapon that could take down my lawn “visitors.” Even if I were so inclined to shoot a deer, the local paper would be shooting photos of me as I appeared in some court.
THEY CAUSE DAMAGE
Hey, Bambi may look cute, but the rise in the deer population causes real problems: damages to forests and crops, and vehicular crashes. In 2013, New Jersey recorded more than 26,000 deer-related accidents.
At least once a year a deer-culling operation takes place in our county-owned parks. Off-duty law enforcement personnel make up the majority of those who participate in killing the deer whose meat is donated to shelters, etc. Of course, every year some deer-lovers group makes a stink about the demise of those animals.
MY SUGGESTION
My suggestion is for the county to “round up” the deer who have moved into suburbia and put them in trucks and then return them to the park right before the culling operation.
Or drop them on the lawns of those deer lovers. Then get the reaction of those people when their lawns and bushes are wrecked by their dear deers.