Can we talk?

Chickens Versus Deer

         I'm beginning to feel like animals are a big preoccupation for me. Not only do I have chickens messing up the yard, squirrels terrorizing me, but the deer destroy everything. The deer eat the vegetable gardens. They eat the flowers in the spring before they can bloom. They eat sea grass, so that I only have tall thin stalks. They eat the butterfly bush, reducing my butterfly bait. They eat the rhododendrons and the plants in my pots on the patio. And they clop on the wheel chair ramp outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night.

         The local county authorities are debating the fate of backyard chickens in residential areas of the county. Not that I mind my neighbor keeping his chickens penned in the last two days. But it's easy to pick on chicken owners since there aren't really that many. Yet the dear are overpopulated and destroy every subdivision and even the city properties. They don't do anything about deer because there are no owners, no one to fine. And the answer is to reduce the population.

         Now that's unpopular. If you relocate the deer, that's costly and inconvenient. And they would probably come back. If you make a longer hunting season, or increase the limit, that won't help  populated areas where hunting isn't permitted. Nobody wants to capture or exterminate Bambi. But people and all animals weren't meant to live together without medical care for all. Control the animal population. I'm all for people population control, too. (No exterminations, just ... well, you know, not making more of them.)