In a recent article, a representative of the Cibolo Nature Center advocated hunting of deer in our community due to overpopulation. The alleged overpopulation is assigned to the high birthrates due to the benevolence of nature as regards this year’s rain and subsequent plant growth. The deer have plenty of food and water. They’re fertile and are just too many to live with. Therefore they must be “harvested” to provide for the deer that are lucky enough to survive the purge.

Consider the animal’s perspective. When times are tough, the herd is thinned because they are threatened with starvation. When times are good, the herd is thinned because there’s too much food. What’s a good deer to do? Thinning the herd is what people are all about.

But it’s not thinning really; it’s more like murder. This writer believes in the sanctity of life, all life including the life of animals, and the responsibility to manage the world we live in.

When life is sacred it’s not so easy to “thin the herd.” First we take the animals’ land by overdeveloping and overpopulating it ourselves, then we say there are too many animals now living in our crowded space. We did the same thing to the Indians when we confiscated their lands and slaughtered their populations to make room for the Manifest Destiny of white settlers. Might was right and, unfortunately, it is right now as regards the deer population. Fact: the problem is not with the deer. As Pogo used to say, “We know what the problem is and it is us.”

What to do? Consider that nature as been selectively managing her affairs for her various populations for millennia. Now modern man pops onto the scene and takes control. What results? Nature is out of balance. Entire species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. And certain species, especially those which have anatomical parts that can be sold at profit or made in to trophies, one thinks of tusks or antlers for example, these species are always subject to the guns of poachers and hunters.

Honestly, are there so many deer we can’t stand it anymore? Are they suffering? Are their starved, emaciated carcasses offensively lying underfoot? Here’s the truth: no one, again I say no one, would want to kill deer if it weren’t for the fact that they have heads with antlers that make nice trophies and the fact that some people eat their flesh. It is rationalization pure and simple to say that the deer are too many. It is only pride and greed that want them dead.

Let’s give the deer a chance. Let the nature center and other organizations like them promote dedicating more land to preserves for the deer and if there are overpopulations, let them be moved there. Let us reconsider the sanctity of life and cease the holocaust of deer.