Though this article is about Arkansas, it can apply to Anywhere USA that has the problem. In a word the problem is deer.  The small northern Arkansas city in which I live is overrun with the four footed marauding destroyers. They eat nearly everything they find and destroy vegetable gardens and flowers during their nightly invasions. And to make matters worse, some of the fair citizens of the town want to protect them and protest any mention of thinning the herd.

Nationally it is estimated that there are 30 million deer now prancing around enjoying the same protection as if it were an endangered species. In Arkansas the herd is estimated at one million strong scattered over 75 counties. (Source: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission) Most of them are in rural wooded areas but are beginning to increase in number in the small towns that dot the landscape such as Fairfield Bay and Heber Springs. While deer aren’t very smart, they do have keen survival instincts and gravitate to those areas that provide a haven and abundant food, much of which is provided by humans who like to feed the Bambi’s.

Those who abhor any mention of thinning and behave with extreme emotion when someone tries to implement such a plan, use all kinds of rhetoric to argue against it. In Heber Springs one of the arguments was that people like to see them and feed them. One city alderman admitted that he fed them corn in his backyard. A game officer remarked to me in the summer of 2004 that feeding wild life, (birds excepted) was plain stupid. (The average adult deer needs 5 to 10 pounds of food per day.) The feeders also give all kinds of advice to the gardeners about how to protect their plants from the marauders. Of course, the advice is given for nothing and worth the same amount. The many defenses offered for the deer make humans the problem and that brings me to the last crazy argument.  

An argument most often used is, “They were here first and we intruded on their territory.” Indeed we did and there is reason for it. In Genesis we learn that God created the animals first and then created man, whom he set right amongst the animals and told man to have dominion over them, not the other way around. God didn’t make animals supreme or give them rights over human kind, so we have a right to use their space and to control them according to the Bible. That doesn’t mean we abuse or misuse them, but neither do we allow them to roam at will and destroy what we create using the talents that God gives us in order to grow a food supply and create beauty with flowers.  

The earth worshippers, which includes animals, always want to give them preference over humans. Some of the PETA people and Earth liberation fanatics resort to all kinds of property destroying acts to convince people who are using the earth as God intended that they are damaging the earth and the animals. They totally ignore the fact that their tactics are both destructive and illegal.

While deer lovers aren’t necessarily destructive or violent, they contribute to destructive behavior and apparently don’t realize it. One, by their refusing to countenance herd thinning, they contribute to herd disease and lack of food available to the herds. Feeding them causes the deer to loose their fear of humans and that endangers both the deer and the feeders.

Though deer are enjoyable to see, their ways which are encouraged by humans, cause a problem for those who enjoy other things in life.  Give the deer and the rest of us a break by using reason instead of emotion in solving the problem.  It is patently pure selfishness to defend and protect the deer while expecting the rest of us to allow the animals to roam because deer lovers enjoy seeing them. Give us a break and allow management of the deer, please.

© 07-10-2005