Your article “Motorist collisions with deer on the rise in Harpswell” (December) blames deer for the rise. I feel that we should reframe the issue. Who determined that the deer were the problem? The deer were here first. We just moved in on them.
Now, I’m not saying we should move out. I’m simply saying that rather than aggressively culling the herd, we could consider alternative means of controlling and/or managing their repopulation of the Harpswell area.
There are at least two possible ways of going about this. We could dispatch trained wildlife veterinarians to neuter the dominant bucks, but this would take significant time and resources. Instead, I propose that pregnant does be taken captive to deliver their fawns in captivity. This would improve local fawn mortality statistics and allow Harpswellites to domesticate them. These fawns should then be trained as sleigh pullers.
I agree that drivers should be more vigilant on the roads, but allowing more deer to be slain is absurd. These deer, as you yourself have quoted, “are amazingly adaptable.” We should take advantage of that adaptability. Take hold of it, rein it in, harness it. We should start a campaign to capture and train the deer. We should all ride in sleighs pulled by deer in reins.
As you said, “more than 90% of all collisions with large animals involved deer.” Thus, it is only logical to garage the cars and put reins on the deer.
Kathryn Nichols, Harpswell
