In the Washington, D.C., area, deerkills are organized by local governments to cull the herds. I had to laugh one day last year when I read that the City of Fairfax was reporting it had 11 deer captured, tranquilzed and sterilized during the organized timeframe. Heck, they could have boosted their record and caught more if they had visited my backyard last Fall----I counted a herd of 11 deer grazing and peeing/pooping on just the back half of my half-acre lot, eating whatever vegetation they could find (including any weeds they are welcome to eat) and leaving behind the risk of Lyme disease from deer ticks.
We see a lot of deer in the fall and winter, because the federal parkland and other undeveloped land (what's left ot it around here) don't provide enough food for the huge deer population.
Yesterday, a Mama deer and her two babies were hanging around my backyard. Last year, I had to call the county's animal control number (which is the police department) and a cop came out and had to chase down a severely injured deer who somehow had landed in my backyard overnight. I couldn't chase away that deer and soon realized it had to be injured, but once the police car showed up in the driveway, the deer began to limp away, obviously with a broken hip--probably caused by a car out on the nearby four-lane road (and we hope the driver is OK). The amount of deer roadkill out on that road is pretty extensive.
I told the officer I hoped he could shoot the poor thing and put it out of its misery, but he said he had to somehow corral it first because firing his gun might injure somebody. I don't know what happened after the officer left my driveway and went to the block behind my house to pursue the deer.
Excess deer are a population and environmental problem for humans and the deer. Hunting and killing in an organized way have become essential.
Even in the heart of the city, deer have been reportedly crashing through glass doors of office buildings and front windows of homes and causing all sorts of other damage to themselves and others.
Those with such a strict moral code about culling a self-destructive herd of animals need to see the problem up live and close in their own yards.
In our area, the organized and regulated hunts for deer result in the meat being donated to food charities and the hungry.
Deer have only two natural enemies to keep the population at a reasonable level---car collisions and starvation.
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