I grew up in a deer culture. Although I wouldn’t say West Virginians are like the Ihalmiut or the Sami, deer play an important role in our culture. They are celebrated as a game and trophy species, and as a source of food. They are also reviled as pests that eat crops and as hazards on the highways that jump out into oncoming traffic.
But a lot of people feed them, and when you see the same deer every evening, you get to know them.
This is the case with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s new book The Hidden Life of Deer.
I have read her two books on dogs, which are heavily anthropomorphic and one of which is based upon what some would call highly irresponsible dog stewardship (i.e., letting your male husky wander the Greater Boston area.)
But I still liked them.
They are examples of what would happen if a trained anthropology would turn her careful eye to a non-human species.
White-tailed deer are nothing like dogs. They are a prey species, and they have a very different social behavior. They can never be domesticated (at least to the same level as reindeer/caribou). They generally fear people, because people kill them, but they are also quite common and can live really close to large populations of people. That final characteristic is all they share with domestic dogs.
Because these deer are such a different species, I am very curious to see her take on the white-tailed deer. I’m going to listen to this NPR interview to get an idea.
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I didn’t realize that people were anal about feeding deer.
Just about everyone feeds deer in West Virginia.
People have fed deer here for years (it’s very much a part of the culture). Banning such a practice probably would be controversial. There is already a lot of public distrust toward our DNR (a lot of it unjustified). Politically, it would be a disaster for the agency.
There really are more of them now than there were before Columbus came. The coyotes have not checked their population at all.
I’d like some real hard statistics that feeding deer harms them, because I’ve not seen anything like harm to them here. There are tons of them. Deer season of some form in my home county runs from September until the end of the year.
I think this is making a mountain out of a molehill. However, in the CWD area, the ban makes sense.
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Read what happened when WV tried to ban deer feeding. (Scroll to the bottom).
It’s interesting that people realize feeding bears is dangerous to the bears, but feeding deer gives out warm fuzzies for some reason. I guess it’s different when the animal is a hooved sop-eyed beaut versus a clawed-and-toothed predator.
I’ve got the book on reserve for when the library here finally gets it in. I agree with your consensus of her dog books: my beef was her permissiveness on the natural matings that would just happen with her dogs, and though I admit it’s been years since I’ve read the books, I recall breeding happening quite often. Her observations were interesting insights, though, despite her lack of responsible ownership at times. I’m wondering if her deer stories come from urban deer or from somewhere else, though?
They come from the deer she fed on her family’s property in New Hampshire.
I’m not opposed to feeding deer, provided they don’t become habituated and friendly– that’s when they become dangerous.
There’s a world of difference between feeding herbivores vs. omnivores or carnivores.
Deer, rabbits, and birds don’t (although I won’t say ‘never’) raid your trashcan at night