Oh "Deer"...

There has been an uproar lately in the local media about the City of Solon, Ohio, and their “deer culling” program. Like most cities in N.E. Ohio, the area is overrun with an uncontrolled deer population. Across the area there are literally thousands of car vs deer accidents occurring each year. Some local governments are attempting to correct a problem that they created years ago when they banned deer hunting, and allowed developers to build homes and businesses on every square inch of available land. Now the deer have no where to go except grandmas garden and I-271. So the city fathers of Solon and other ‘burbs” have decided to hire sharp-shooters to cull the deer population.

I don’t have a problem with this. I do have a problem with the morons who are interviewed on the local news whining about how cruel it is to shoot the deer. They bemoan their fears of their children being mistaken for deer and shot to death in their beds by the hired guns. They cry in fear for their horses that might also be mistaken for deer. After all, the sharpshooters are just bloodthirsty cave dwellers who only want to pull the trigger. They have no intelligence or ability to distinguish deer from any other warm target.

Give me a break. I could only hope that the sharpshooters might take aim on a couple of these idiots who are also the first to complain when the deer run out in front of them on the road, or destroy their flower beds, or jump through their front windows.

Don’t get me wrong, I think deer are beautiful. I love to watch them feeding in the fields. It is still a thrill to see them crossing through my yard, or playing with each other in a meadow. I’m not a hunter. I don’t know if I could pull the trigger on one. But I see the need to “cull the herd” because overpopulation can be dangerous to humans and to the deer themselves.

Now, we go to Independence, Ohio…that city is attempting to prosecute a man for feeding the deer. It seems that Independence has a law against “putting out animal feed in proximity to private property”. His neighbors have complained so he faces criminal charges.

The bottom line is there is no bottom line…shoot them, don’t feed them, don’t hit them with cars, or don’t shoot them, keep feeding them, hit them with cars. Keep cutting down the trees, paving the meadows, and building homes where the deer used to live, or stop taking their homes. Man has created quite a conundrum. ( I love that word, and I’m glad I finally found a forum in which to use it.)

I do have a solution to give us some relief from the topic… Let’s enact legislation making it a felony for any media type to interview anyone else from Solon.