So here's what happened. A couple miles from where I live in Dexter, a deer got hit by a car. It was injured but not killed. In its traumatized state it managed to make its way to a local school where a school bus driver, seeing the state it was in, ran his bus over it to put it out of its misery. Worse, this happened in view of some of the kids.
Deer are a serious problem in these parts and not just as traffic hazards. They eat everything you plant, whether it's my tulip bulbs or a farmer's corn crops. They have no serious predators left around here; there are a scattering of hunting grounds, but for the most part I live in an exurban world , which means old farmhouses, some with actual farms,Arts & Craft-style McMansions with multi-acre lawns, and huge open wetlands and wilderness areas. It's really deer heaven around here. Naturally their population has exploded. It is almost certain that there are more deer in Michigan than there ever were in all of history or pre-history. The food supply is endless and predators are rare.
Next door in Ann Arbor, one of the most liberal, environmentalist populations in the country, it was so bad they instituted a cull. That is to say, they hired hunters to come in and kill a bunch of deer. This process was, of course, subject to much debate and very tightly controlled as to time, place, and count. The venison was donated to the Food Gatherers charity. Still, there was a good deal of outcry about this, as you would expect from that particular demographic but, even in the name of Gaia, they couldn't deny the reality of the situation. To minimize the need for culls another group has arranged to trap and sterilize deer. This has no effect on the current population obviously but it is unclear how much it will affect the future population. However you approach it, no one denies there are too many deer.
In Dexter, the relationship with deer is equally complex. In years past (although not in long while) Dexter had a prominent buck pole right in the village commercial center. A buck pole is a well, tall pole, say 10 feet or so, with a cross-member. After a successful hunt, one would hang his buck (male deer, you can only hunt doe in special circumstances) carcass on the pole for display. Among deer hunters this was a social activity, you could swap stories and back-slap -- like fisherman in the bar at the end of the day. The business that erected the pole each season folded or moved a few years ago, but a recent post on a local facebook group reminiscing about good times around the buck pole prompted strongly contrasting opinions some calling it a horror and disgusting, others offering to educate them as to the source of their hamburgers, as so forth. (I am so glad I was an early deinzen of internet forums and so learned sooner than others to never argue on the internet.)
But back to the bus driver incident. Naturally this got picked up by news outlets in places where they can't imaging deer are anything but friendly bambis that eat out of your hand. Inquiries were called for, position statements were issued, moral self-identification opportunities were taken. But here in town, apart from a couple of hand-wringers, pretty much everybody supported the regrettably necessary actions of the bus driver. A wounded deer is a dangerous and unpredictable thing. It's a shame that the kids saw that, but it would be a different story if one of them took a hoof to the temple. Then the outrage would have been about why NOBODY DID ANYTHING, followed by calls to arm bus drivers. (I kid. Maybe.) In the moment, it really was the right thing to do. As gruesome as it seems, it did end the deer's suffering and it protected the kids.
Unlike some citified newsroom flunkie, we know this. We know from deer 'round here.
