There are too many deer. There is not enough deer meat. It used to be many of my neighbors headed into winter with a freezer decently filled with deer meat steaks, stewing pieces and deer burger, and in the pantry several jars of mincemeat made from the neck and spare parts. How some of my neighbors obtained some of that deer meat may lead to awkward questions, but in those days we could have vegetable gardens without incarcerating them behind penitentiary-style fencing.
Of course, in those days, too, there were notorious ravines at the bottom of which reeked trash bags full of skin, feet, and other inedibles. There were secluded places along the shore famous among children where you could find skulls and bones, picked clean by scavenger birds and laundered by the waves. There are stories, too, about deer jacking a mite too close to some people’s back yards. I’ve been told, though I kept a grain of salt handy-by, that there was a time when a deer could be cut up and whisked into a freezer in 15 minutes.
Then entered the state to offer that bounty to anyone who snitched on a poacher. It was irresistible – all that money with the delectation of evening up a old score or grudge. Ever since, the deer have been a problem.
Ten feet from my kitchen door early last summer the miserable wretches grazed on my hollyhocks. One day I looked out my window to see a young deer with blueberry blossoms dangling from its lower lip. Replanting green beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, or even, for goodness sakes, potatoes, mourning my day lilies, roses, and grape hyacinths: these things make me feel murderous. Why don’t they just come in the kitchen and open the fridge?
A couple years ago, I heard that in a 52-week period there were something in the vicinity of 47 car and deer accidents on island. Somebody said that the only predator deer have out here is a motor vehicle. Then there are the stories people tell about deer stepping up on decks to graze on window boxes or out of tubs of potted plants.
As many places do, we allow bow and arrow hunting on this island, and while the hunters grow more skilled every year, they are still outnumbered. From time to time I am the beneficiary of one hunter’s expertise, and my heart leaps with joy when his pickup truck comes into the yard in November. I have no objection to hunting and in fact would cheerfully cook up a hunter’s breakfast for anyone who would like to sit on my back steps and shoot the critter who ate the hollyhocks. But it is nothing I want to do myself, not because I could not kill, but sitting up in trees in the cold has too little appeal to add bow hunting to my list of hobbies.
Killing for food is a very different sort of thing than is trophy gathering. It seems honorable to me. Deer meat is good food – low fat, susceptible to excellent preparation. Some folks make wonderful deer sausage, savory venison stews, game pies.
Me, I like deer poached.