Driving through the foothills of the Adirondacks, I came around a corner and was forced to swerve around a dead deer, sprawled across the highway.
I quickly pulled the truck off the side of the road and dragged the deer, a fawn, to a stretch of grass, just off the blacktop. My biggest concern was that an unsuspecting motorist might swerve to avoid striking the corpse and collide with a vehicle coming the other way.
While I am an avid deer hunter and have shot a good number of deer over the years, the scene was nevertheless one that was steeped in sadness. Here was the wasted life of a magnificent mammal, only months old.
As I walked back to the truck, I happened to glance over my shoulder and spotted the head of a deer, looking across the road. I stopped and watched. The deer, a mature doe, hastened across the roadway, then paused over the body of the lifeless fawn.
It was obviously the mother of the fawn, returning to learn of the fate of its young. It hovered over the fawn’s body, dropping its nose down, sniffing the carcass. It nervously looked around and appeared downright confused. Again and again,its head came down to the fawn. Another 30 seconds later, the doe casually walked off into the thick woods.
While we can never know, for certain, what was going through that doe’s brain, it must have experienced some form of loss.
I have hunted, observed and photographed whitetail deer for nearly 50 years. No animal in Vermont can match the pure grace, intelligence, adaptability and instincts of deer. They are survivors, in the pure sense of the word.
And Vermonters absolutely love the animal that graces our state flag. Deer are by far the preferred game of Vermont hunters, and every November a small army of red-clad deer hunters hunts the hills and valleys with venison on their minds.
But deer are held in great esteem by non-hunters as well. During my walks down my country road, I will sometimes stop and talk with neighbors, who excitedly detail any encounter with a deer.
At the Rutland Herald, the place where I was employed for nearly 33 years, fellow workers would sometimes stop by my desk to talk about the deer they observed in their back yards. Their excitement as they detailed those experiences was palpable.
Even my mailman stops during his deliveries to talk excitedly of deer sightings.
None of these people hunt deer, but they are excited about the fact that deer live among them. That speaks volumes about the important role that whitetail deer have on just about all Vermonters.
I once had a long conversation with a Vermont Fish & Wildlife biologist who I hold in high esteem. I asked him if he thought deer were intelligent. His response was that, no, deer are not intelligent; rather, he said, they have been genetically engineered to react to certain situations in a certain way.
I humbly disagree.
One of the most amazing attributes to the wisdom of deer is something I have experienced at least a dozen times, probably more.
Of all the three crucial senses of whitetails — eyesight, the sense of smell and hearing — it is their ability to pick out the “stench” of human odor that ranks, by far, as the highest.”
Stopping by in the woods, during a scouting expedition, a hunt or simply a casual hike, I have had deer react to my presence in a way that is nothing short of amazing.
Sometimes, they will study the form in front of them. Something, they must know, is not just right. But they simply cannot put their hoof on it. On some occasions, they will actually approach the form. Then, standing stiffly and still unsure, a deer will briskly stomp one foot — hard to the ground. This they will do repeatedly. Obviously, the deer in question is attempting to provoke some kind of reaction to the unknown threat before them.
I have also observed deer that were feeding along, their head down close to the forest floor in search of apples, acorns, beechnuts, any wide variety of food. Then, usually prompted by some form of movement, the deer will pop its head, alertly, back up.
The smart ones will continue to feed, as if nothing is amiss. Then, perhaps seconds later, that head will pop up once more, and again, and again. The deer knows that something isn’t right; but it can’t be certain, so it hopes to catch the unknown intruder unaware.
Of all the three crucial senses of whitetails — eyesight, the sense of smell and hearing — it is their ability to pick out the “stench” of human odor that ranks, by far, as the highest.
Did you ever ride down a road when, suddenly, you are hit in the face with the awful smell of a skunk? That has to be something like what a deer experiences when it first catches the scent of man. And their reaction is instantaneous. They will bound off as if their very lives depended upon it.
Quite often, that is the case.
Of all the dangers a deer faces, it is man, by far, that ranks the highest. And I am not merely talking about hunters. Vermont deer hunters shoot thousands of deer every year. But automobiles, barbed wire fences and domestic dogs also account for high numbers of deer mortality.
A deer’s life is fraught with danger. One October, perhaps 10 years ago, I found the perfect, bleached-white skull of a magnificent 7-point buck at the edge of a massive swamp. Mice, squirrels and other critters will chew on the antlers of deer — which are dropped every winter and then re-grown every spring — and that makes it very hard to find drops. The animals chew up the antler bone before most humans can ever find them.
The buck I found, at least according to a theory of mine, was out in the open. I can only surmise that the little critters that would usually feed on the antlers of that buck decided not to venture into the open, where any assortment of predators could easily swoop down on them.
After I found the skull, I wondered about the fate of that buck. It could have been a hunter’s bullet, or a car or a coyote, even an injury. I will never know, but every time I hold that deer’s skull and antlers in my hands, I try, unsuccessfully, to ponder its fate.
A great creature moves among us Vermonters, hunters and non-hunters alike. Deer give us the gift of venison, they bless our fields with their red coats of summer and they often slip away, almost ghost-like, during the early mornings of mid-November.
There is no creature in our midst that can match the wonder of the whitetail.
