Oh Deer! It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again
Not sleeping soundly isn’t at all uncommon for me. It has been engrained at least since my days in the military and has proven to be deeply rooted. The surgeon’s life certainly doesn’t make it any better. One morning not too long ago, at around 5 am I received a phone call from one of my daughters. I was already wide awake and had been for a while. From the other end of the phone I heard “Let me just start with the car is fine. The deer, on the other hand, not so much.”
She was on her way to work and despite driving at a low rate of speed, she encountered a young buck who was bent on leaving this world behind. She had to get to work, but she told me where it occurred and I went to check out the accident scene. The deer was critically injured. It reminded me of the kids cartoon movie “Open Season”, only way more gnarly.
The only humane thing to do was to put him out of his misery. Fortunately he was in a location in which this could be safely and quickly accomplished. This kind of thing happens all too often where I live and it poses an interesting dilemma. In our neck of the woods, the automobile has become important player in the life cycle of the local wild life population. Road kill happens. Often. The dilemma is: what do you do now?
The easiest thing to do is to just leave it there to either be consumed by predators or scavengers, or sometimes to simply decompose. Not to create an overly romantic notion of “pavement pizza”, but in this manner the untimely sacrifice of the deer will ultimately give nourishment and life to other creatures of all sizes.
Another unique local option in our region is to provide the carcass to help feed a local captive wolf population that resides at Bays Mountain Nature Preserve. They strive to maintain a population of around 10 wolves. As I’m sure you can imagine, ten out of ten wolves prefer fresh meat to kibble in blind taste tests. While this is a great way to dispose of fresh meat, their capacity to consume the meat is limited.
The other option is human consumption. That’s right. If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade Road Kill Edition. According to the tn.gov website, TCA 70-4-115 makes provision for wild game animals (excluding non game and federally protected wildlife species) “accidentally killed by a motor vehicle to be possessed for personal use and consumption”. The only requirement is notification of law enforcement or a TWRA official within 48 hours and providing your name. The rules for bear are slightly different and require TWRA notification and issuance of a possession tag prior to taking possession of the carcass..
I’m not going to say what we did in this instance, but the whole chain of events reminds me of a story.
When I was in surgery residency, we earnestly began our homesteading journey. At the time, we lived on 25 rural acres surrounded by a creek. It was amazing and remote, particularly for the area. My typical day started by driving to work before daylight, going home well after sunset (if I got to go home that day), and repeating on a seemingly endless loop.
On one of my morning commutes, through an exhausted morning haze, I saw a few deer crossing the lazy country road in front of me. I slowed my small pick up truck to a crawl so that they could pass, but despite my best efforts, a young buck hurled himself into my left front bumper. “Ugh! I don’t have time for this!” I stopped and pulled over to assess the damage. Fortunately, there was only a small dent on the bumper. The young buckling was was clearly wounded, but I couldn't tell how badly. It happened fast, but I was pretty sure that he was a spike. He was able to move into some nearby brush. I could hear his grunting respirations but couldn’t see him well. Just shadows.
I was thankful that the truck wasn’t significantly damaged, but I didn't have any time to waste. I had to get to the hospital to help with morning rounds. We had a limited window to try to identify any time-sensitive issues before surgery started for the day. So, I did what I felt was the only logical thing to do given the circumstances. I tied a paper scrub cap to a branch at the location on the road side of where I saw the deer’s shadow. On the way into work, once I had cell phone reception, I called my wife and told her what happened and where it happened. When I got to work, I got swept away in the events of the day.
Finally, the day was winding to an end. Things were squared away to the best of our ability. Everyone was tucked in and it was time to take it to the house before I got caught up in something else. Of course, it was already dark again. Did the sun ever really come up when I was working? Somedays I couldn't say for certain. It felt like an arctic winter at times.
A forty minute commute was all that stood between me and an hour or so of family time before we would all need to go to be to get ready to do it all over again. When I got home, to my surprise, my wife (and a few of the older kids) had dressed the deer, completely broken it down, and had it chilling in our now overstuffed refrigerator. The budget was always tight in those days, so this was a huge blessing. More than that, it reaffirmed that my wife is a complete bad ass.
