MUST Romeo die??

Fun fact: I started blogging here at Blogger exactly one year ago today! AND it's my 99th post. I'm sure that has some significance in the world, but since I can't think of anything significant to say about it, I thought I'd tell you a true story instead.

(<--NOT Romeo... and you'll see what I mean in a moment.)

There’s this male deer (Stag? Buck? Bull?)… I’ll call him Romeo, a six-pointer, no less, that has become quite comfortable on my side of the river. Something tells me that he’s injured or sick because when his herd leaves to forage in other neighborhoods, he sticks around, never wandering very far from my garage. Romeo used to act skittish every time I rolled out the trash can to the curb or when I let my one-year-old scream “Goggy! Goggy!” while standing in the window sill. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t skittishness at all. Maybe he was just pissed to be confused for a doggy. Whatever the reason, Romeo had recently changed his ways and started earning the designation of house pet, acting more and more domesticated as time passed. I’d open the garage to back out, and he’d continue to lie beneath the trees, staring into space and chewing his curd. (Do deer chew curds??) Pretty soon, when Kyra screamed OGGY! at the window, he’d simply stare at her for a moment before continuing to sniff the butt of a nearby doe. Anyway, Romeo came back from a walk around the block this weekend with his antlers in a tangled web of Christmas lights. They dangled into his eyes and down his back like emaciated, green dreadlocks. But, try as he might, he just couldn’t get them off. Romeo was OBVIOUSLY perturbed and has since reverted to his wary self that takes offense at the sound of my approaching car and my daughter’s high-pitched screams. It’s too bad. I’d gladly untangle his antlers for him… if I could only trust that he wouldn’t kill me.

But here’s the bad news, in my opinion, of course. The Christmas lights people must be complaining about all the Romeos of this town ruining their overdue-to-be-taken-down holiday decorations… or maybe about their dormant lawns getting torn up... or maybe about their soon-to-be garden plots overfertilized with deer poop. I assume they must be complaining because the city is going to open up a Romeo Hunt at the golf course (which, by the way, is across the river from me). About thirty of these guys are scheduled to be dead before the end of February. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against hunting, per se. It’s what our ancestors did, right? It provides food for hungry humans, entertainment for those who like the great outdoors, maybe even exercise for the people that actually HUNT… AND, in terms of meat consumption, it’s probably more ethical than growing cattle and filling them up with steroids and antibiotics and then killing them before they turn one.

But, somebody tell me, where’s the sport in killing deer at a golf course? If not for the Christmas lights incident, Romeo was liable to eat out of your hand, if your hand had something like fresh alfalfa in it. ALL the deer around my place are pretty human-friendly. So, maybe it's not about the hunt. Maybe it's about ERADICATING the overpopulated, domesticated deer? If that's the case, why not just put out deer poison?? Why not drown them in the river? Why call it a HUNT??

Seriously, is it their fault that they are running out of territory as our neighborhoods sprawl farther and farther out like my growing children's legs in front of the TV on Saturday mornings? I don’t know… maybe I’m just having a hard time imagining Romeo staring into the barrel of a rifle. Life has sucked enough for him already, what with his illness/sickness and now the web of lights he has to see the world through. If only he could bark, fetch, dance a jig… maybe then we’d be impressed enough to let him live in our backyards.