The Deer Are Already Dying

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

The other day I featured the poem, "Gathering Leaves," by 20th century New England poet Robert Frost in this space.  In his ode to autumn, Frost regarded the falling leaves as a "crop" of the season.  Another crop of the season, at least where I live, is deer.

Most mornings I sit typing in front of my living room window that looks out toward the paved county road - and it's a rare morning of late when I don't see a deer or two bound from the brush across the road and over into my yard where they head to the backyard and out toward the pond - and salt lick.  In the first light of morning when I go out to open the chicken coop and feed the cat, there are often five or ten deer out close to the pond, standing and nibbling at the ground as they get set for another day of running though the brush and trying to stay away from the troublesome humans who have grown too thick for comfort.  They usually disperse about the time they notice me, and will sometimes regroup in the same general area just as the last light of day is flickering out.

Last Sunday morning, again right as the dawn was breaking, I had strolled out by the road to pick up some trash that a throughful neighbor had pitched onto my yard.    As I was bent over, right next to the roadway, I noticed that an approaching car was was suspiciously slowing down.  I turned to head back in the direction of the house and was ignoring the car, when it pulled up behind me and stopped.  It was a highway patrolman, not a common sight on county roads.  He rolled down his passenger window to engage me in conversation.

It was just barely light out, and I figured he was checking me out.  Was I sober?  Was I a vagrant or did I live there?  That sort of thing.  So I stepped up to his car so he could look me over.  I think he decided quickly that I was alright, and then as a cover to his curiosity about me, he began talking about the deer.  He said that he had often noticed them down by the pond - leading me to suspect that he might live somewhere on further down the lane.  I told him that I liked the deer - and he said that he did, too.  Now, I suppose we are friends.

The following day, Monday, I drove to Springfield for a doctor's appointment.  The trip is one hundred miles each way over a four lane highway.  I noticed two dead deer (hit by cars) along the road heading toward Springfield, and two more on the return trip to West Plains.  The mating season for Missouri's white-tail deer (also called "the rut"), is generally from October through January with most activity occurring in November.  That get's the deer out bounding across the public roads and sometimes into the paths of on-coming vehicles.  And, as if rutting wasn't enough to keep them stirred up and moving, the state has several deer hunting seasons extending across October and November, with the main firearms-for-adults portion beginning next Saturday and running for ten days.

Bullets and cars - it's going to be a bloodbath!  Add to that all of the "deer hunter specials" that the local liquor stores will be promoting, and the yearly carcass count will include several humans as well thousands of doe-eyed deer.

I will feel sadness for the deer.