I love to hear of hunters bagging deer because like a few other Hangouters I have no love for them as an animal.
It all started when they ate my banana tree. I grew it in a half wine barrel until it was 8' tall!
We see dead deer on the road all the time! We are so lucky that we haven't hit one in all the time we've lived on this road. I watch for their eyes in the dark.
I have eaten venison when it was really good & really bad. My family didn't hunt but I had a shotgun & a .22 in my teens & 20's. I had my upland game license & shot squirrels, rabbits & grouse.
I went on one deer hunt & we got one! I've spent time in deer camps but on fishing trips.
There's so many restrictions on hunting them there will always be too many. Everyone here is into gardening. I say we vote them off the Island!
I admire the bumper sticker that says
only the one IO saw said DEER, not ANIMALS
Theres room for all God's creatures,right next to the mashed potatoes.
I trimmed all the shrubs out front & was looking out for ticks. I had a black pocket comb & ran it all over my head a few times. Lyme Disease is No Joke!
Edited by - bubbalouie on 11/21/2019 19:17:20
We didn't encounter deer until we moved here from Toronto. Then one time we were in Toronto and saw two deer crossing Scarlett Road south of Eglinton - that's urban territory, although it's along the Humber River. We never saw them in Toronto before, outside the High Park animal paddocks.
We were driving back from Toronto on the 401 in rush-hour traffic when we saw a deer on the road, in our lane. There was no room to change lanes. We were lucky that so many cars had already run over it that it was pretty much flattened.
On the way back from Montreal one night a deer crossed in front of the car, damaging the left headlight area. Some time later I was driving home with our daughter, slowing to turn into our subdivision, when a deer crossed the road and bumped into the car, denting the left rear door. Some nerve!
Then one evening I was driving downhill on Highway 2 just around the corner from home when a car heading in the opposite direction was pulling off the road. Little did I know that they'd just hit a deer and thrown it into my path - until my car was launched airborne over it, landing flat and causing massive damage. Even a dead deer can cause harm.
Deer and our cars - not a good mix. Fortunately we haven't hit one with the new car.
When we got Angus, our Sheltie, the deer stopped coming around. There was the time before he arrived when the cat, Shelby (a.k.a. Schlubby) was making the weird sounds she makes when she's spotted prey. The Mrs. looked out, expecting to see a chipmunk or a squirrel. Then she looked farther into the woods and saw two deer. Methinks our little kitty was a poor judge of scale.
With as many deer as I hit on the train each trip...I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re not very smart.
They mill around the tracks and just walk right in front of the train. We turn the lights off and blow the whistle...no luck, they get wasted. For wild animals, you’d figure they’d be better than that.
Surprisingly though...owls and coyotes are the next runners up for trespassers in front of the train.
Maybe the owls & coyotes mistake the train horn for some kind of EXTREME mating call.
(Sci fi story, the basis for the movie "Beast from 10,000 Fathoms", was about a sea monster who mistook the foghorn of a lighthouse for a sea-monster mating call.)
I’m guessing the owls and coyotes are there for the free venison meals the trains provide.
quote:
Originally posted by OM45GEI’m guessing the owls and coyotes are there for the free venison meals the trains provide.
I’m with Bill on this one!
Critters are critters..deer are just big critters. You don't get too worried about hitting critters with your vehicle until they're bigger than squirrels. Ive hit 2 deer..one with a week old F150. That was over $12,000 to repair. Around here you aviod driving at night in the fall.
Deer urbanize just like any critter. A good article on deer by a biologist said "remember, deer are just rabbits with antlers"...good point. They want food and safety. Nice new subdivisions with tasty grass and shrubs and no hunting...its like a resort for deer. Its where Id live if I was a deer.
I get my 2 deer bowhunting each year, another 3 or 4 at our blackpowder hunt camp in Dec. Great great natural corn/grain/bean fed meat here in S Ontario. Fill the freezer, donate any left to friends and family. Still dont make a dent in the populations. Just like walleye fishing on Lake Erie all summer. Natures bounty.
Okay, Bubba, here's the solution.... glyphosate. On The National last nite there was a blurb about this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/rod-cumberland-fired-maritime-college-forest-technology-glyphosate-1.5199133 [I tried to find the link to last nites story, but could only get older stuff.] Somewhere in the clip it was mentioned that the glyphosate spraying has reduced the deer population... ostensibly from the creation of a coniferous monoculture.
As an aside, there was a local lawn care business whose advertising on his truck consisted of a pair of "praying hands" with his name above it and the slogan "Let us Spray" below it.
Edited by - Owen on 11/22/2019 06:43:11
My dad loved to see deer. And I think that is because when he was growing up seeing a deer in Missouri was a rare thing. The deer had mostly been hunted out. Market hunting, no laws, and rural hunger took out most wild animals that could be eaten.
After WWII the deer population climbed.
I hunted some in the 80's and maybe got one deer. I thought when I moved to WYO I'd be hunting extensively every year. But I was way too busy and only hunted one day in ten years.
Since coming back to the Ozarks I have been in a constant war with the deer. My trees, bushes, flowers, gardens - all extensively damaged or destroyed. They are monster bucks that then disappear as the season approaches. I have a rifle borrowed to take them out, but I just haven't been able to work up enough righteous anger to actually go out into the cold and rain to hunt them. Hunting might imply I want to give them a sporting chance. . .
Up and down our rural road we have a lot of traffic, relatively speaking. Dead deer from car hits are common.
At our little country church the parting admonition is not "See you next Sunday" or "God Bless You." It's "WATCH FOR DEER!"
I smile as I read of my friends traveling to remote far away places to sit in the cold forest in hopes of taking a deer, many times coming back empty-handed. I sit warm on my suburban porch with my feet up watching the herd of about a dozen deer munching on the smorgasbord shrubbery of my neighbors, the males following the females around during rutting season, and the resulting fawns playing months later. 10 point bucks are not uncommon. It makes for interesting viewing. Aside from shrub damage, they are interesting to have around, especially to my dog who is constantly picking up their scent. Deer fall victim to fenders instead of hunting rifles. We must not forget that we invaded and developed their space, not the other way around. Hunting here has disappeared during my lifetime. If I raised a rifle, there would probably be SWAT teams descending on me. Times change.
quote:
Originally posted by mike gregoryMaybe the owls & coyotes mistake the train horn for some kind of EXTREME mating call.
(Sci fi story, the basis for the movie "Beast from 10,000 Fathoms", was about a sea monster who mistook the foghorn of a lighthouse for a sea-monster mating call.)
Now that was funny! Thanks for the morning laugh!
O.K. Owen We'll poison the woods!/s I do notice they'll stand on their hind legs like a gazelle on the African savana to reach the broad leaf maple leaves in the spring.
I have heard mention of mobile abottoir's where they move in to a neighbourhood & turn them into food.
People say you could feed the homeless but not everybody likes venison. Not everybody likes lamb either & not just because of the bambi factor. It's a taste not everybody was raised on.
The way the carcass is treated these days is way better than when I was a kid & I think that really affects the taste & smell. You don't see a bunch of drunk guys driving around with a dear tied onto the hood of their truck anymore.
Dow When I worked in the rail yard I saw the guys driving car carriers picking owls out of their grilles.
They said they sat on the road to get warm at night, Could it be the same with the train tracks?
Keith's post above is the other side of the coin. Notice he enjoyed watching the deer eating his neighbours shrubs!
I think there was a lot less deer around here until we started providing predator free feeding grounds.
I think a lot of people are sympathetic but have just had enough!
quote:
Originally posted by bubbalouieO.K. Owen We'll poison the woods!/s I do notice they'll stand on their hind legs like a gazelle on the African savana to reach the broad leaf maple leaves in the spring.
I have heard mention of mobile abottoir's where they move in to a neighbourhood & turn them into food.
People say you could feed the homeless but not everybody likes venison. Not everybody likes lamb either & not just because of the bambi factor. It's a taste not everybody was raised on.
The way the carcass is treated these days is way better than when I was a kid & I think that really affects the taste & smell. You don't see a bunch of drunk guys driving around with a deer tied onto the hood of their truck anymore.
