Since we put up the Deer in the Yard web page we’ve received thousands of web visits and many e-mails. Most everyone who writes to us simply wishes to express their appreciation and awe at how humans and deer can co-exist.
A few people, however, have wondered about deer who trust us and then too easily trust the deer hunters. I’ll comment on that in a moment. As for the question about flowers, yes, the deer go insane over a fresh flower. Some flowers in the photos are on our balcony, which we keep closed off unless we invite one of the deer up. Then we keep a close eye on the guy.

It’s hard to tell what flowers they won’t eat as different deer have different tastes, but they mostly seem to stay away from rosemary, lavender, daisies, and oleander. We keep a fence around the apple tree and only let them eat the apples that fall off. As for pooping on the lawn, our deer are nice enough to go into the woods for that. Maybe they don’t want to mess up the clover.

As for deer and hunters, we thank you for your concern. Fortunately hunting is not allowed in our area. Even though rather remote, there are houses dotting the landscape, and I think hunting would be dangerous to the humans. However, with all respect to those people who posed the question, I have to say that I believe the idea of deer endangered by friendship with humans is a specious complaint. Deer suffer far more from people driving too fast. The idea that a deer we befriend would then trust a hunter and walk right into his gun sight seems unlikely to me. I understand how people could think that, but if you know deer well, and understand something about the hunter’s perspective, the whole concern seems misplaced.

I know people love to hunt deer, eat their reportedly tasty flesh, and display their mounted heads on the living room wall. Those lovely heads, severed and then frozen in death on a wall – that’s always given me the creeps. But as for hunting and eating, I have to be reasonable and understand that people have been hunting deer for as long as deer and people have lived together. I’m admittedly more on the side of the deer, especially since we are vegetarians. We’ve sometimes thought that being strict vegetarians has something to do with them liking us. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they sense we don’t eat them, or any other meat. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can smell that on our skin. All that means nothing to a clever hunter, however. Deer are plentiful, and follow strict migration patterns. It may not be easy for a hunter to kill a deer just by walking into the woods, but really, when it comes to human against deer, well, let’s just say you don’t see a lot of human heads stuffed and hanging on trees in the wild.

As I mentioned on the web page, our home was their migration area long before we came, and we were surprised that they befriended us at all. However we figured out that it has a LOT to do with our attitude and manner, and as I said, perhaps even that our diet is not so different from theirs. In a curious way, I see a parallel between our manner with the deer and our style of music. Truthfully, they seem to be far smarter than we could have imagined. When a stranger comes near they look to us to see our reaction, and even then they are very careful, usually running into the woods that surround our house. If we are in the house where they can’t see us, they don’t seem to trust others at all, and are gone in a second when they hear something threatening. They have remarkable hearing. Often we are hanging out with them and long before we do, they will hear a dog or a person walking nearby. They all freeze for a moment to listen carefully, and then they usually disappear into the woods, often faster than we can follow their movements. Even while running they are completely silent, and their coats blend perfectly into the color and shading of the woods. I’m in the back yard sometimes and some time later I notice a couple deer only 20 feet away, laying down, casually rechewing their food. If I wasn’t so curious and observant, I never would have seen the guys.

Maybe our deer are smarter than others. I don’t know, but I doubt it. I believe they have a highly developed sensitivity to their environment. We have a neighbor not too far away who told us that the deer come to her property to die when they get old. It’s uncanny, like the fabled elephant burial grounds. She says the very old deer slowly come to her land around her house, lay down and pass away. There’s a long native American tradition in this area that, because we still have a few native Americans, may contribute to the respect the deer feel from us. This is all conjecture, but since we moved into their area, instead of them moving here because of overpopulation, like in many suburban areas, we always felt it was their choice to befriend us. We don’t go out of our way to attract them, aside from being nice, and giving them head and back massages that they seem to love. We planted clover on the lawn, initially for our pleasure, but it turns out they love clover more than we do. It is illegal to build fences in our area, precisely so the wild animals can roam freely.

As I say, only a few people have wondered about how our friendliness may make deer more susceptible to hunters. I appreciate the motivation behind the concern, and not to specifically accuse the folks who wrote, but I wonder about people who speak out about protecting animals, and yet regularly eat meat. I’m just guessing this is the case many times. The following is part of my belief system – I think the way most people eat meat, and most especially the way we factory grow animals for slaughter, is not only morally reprehensible in regards to our treatment of animals, but with chemicals and hormones pumped into our “food,” the enormous amount of water and feed required to raise “animal products,” the mountains of animal waste in feces, blood and guts that regularly gets dumped into the ground and unwisely used for fertilizer, as well as the cost to our health to eat far more meat and fat than humans seem designed to process (did you know it takes 10 pounds of feed to produce one pound of meat? Assuming politcians and corporations had a sense of morality, couldn’t we help to feed the starving humans in the world if we all stopped eating meat or simply ate less?), all this seems to me to be a far greater problem than a hypothetical dumb deer befriending a hunter. As I said, I don’t think they are that dumb anyway. It’s true that they have a poor appreciation for technology, and as their eyesight is not their most developed sense, they do have a problem understanding an oncoming car traveling at a speed nearly unheard of in the animal world. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about how we rampently run them over, but more importantly how we shoot them for fun, and so often carelessly pollute their environment?

Perhaps I have a naive optimism about the world, but I strongly believe that our intentions and actions resonate far wider than most people, even mainstream scientists, currently believe possible. Our small contact with one extended deer family seems like a useful experiment in regaining some kind of balance between humans and the Nature that we have all too often forgotten we are but one part.

Addendum

In just a recent one month period the Deer in the Yard web page received over 225,000 visits. We have received hundreds of e-mails (please excuse us if we don’t write everyone back). We have been ridiculed on at least one hunter’s website, and a magazine in New Zealand asked for permission to republish the site in print form. While the vast majority of e-mails have been supportive and even in awe of our relationship to these mostly gentle creatures, some people have accused us of hurting the deer by convincing them that humans can be trusted. Our response has generally been that the deer are not as dumb as people think, and I believe our experience with them demonstrates that. After years of living here, they don’t seem any more trusting of humans than they were when we arrived. Despite the photographs, they still are very easily startled by any strange movement we may make, and they continue to totally mistrust strangers. Some people will continue to disbelieve this, and many hunters will probably still continue to think our behavior is laughable. I don’t blame the hunters for hunting. I do wish they all had the same respect for the animals they kill that Native Americans reputedly had. It has surprised me as to how many devout Christians have seen our actions as proof that humans can so “love all God’s creatures” and at the same time in such large numbers complain about their own presumably “Christian” neighbors who seem to find delight in killing deer only for sport. There seems to be a real disconnect in America over love and death. In describing Eros and Thanatos, psychologists and philosophers have made revealing pronouncements about humans that I encourage people to look up.

Just to make a few points clear: We did not build this house on the deer’s home. We moved into a 20 year old house that the deer are now quite used to. That humans have done this all over the planet may suggest that it is time we consider moving some of us to other planets. Before the critics make fun of me for that last comment, let me just say that I believe it to be hubris and ignorance to think evolution has stopped with the current state of humanity. Again, look it up. We used to give the deer an almond or two from time to time, but especially because we stopped the rare treat, I believe they really come to us because we are nice to them and our yard offers water, edible vegetation and a safe environment. They also peacefully visit other homes in our neighborhood. We are amused about the idea that they most likely have different names when they arrive at someone else’s home. One person wrote and told us that deer are simply rats with long legs. I realize that increases in deer population has caused a strain on the environment, but I have great concerns about how people are so quick to point their fingers at Nature, deer in this case, without acknowledging the “human rats” who so ignore the consequences of greed and environmental irresponsibility. I would think the hunters would be the first to want to protect the environment. I’m heartened by those few who wrote us with that very thought in mind. Oh, and yes, we know that deer are called “does” and “bucks.” There seems to be some confusion over us calling one deer “Ram.” We named him after Rama, the Hindu god who is often also called simply Ram.

I encourage people to look around our site, especially the Multiverse page, as I do agree that our ideas are indeed strange, but these ideas are largely based on either Eastern philosophy thousands of years old and mostly unfamiliar in the West, or science so new that even many scientists are reluctant to travel from the mainstream in order to explore it. There is such a thing as neophobia, fear of the new. I believe that if we do not overcome that fear, humanity may not survive. I truly feel sorry for those who delight in making fun of us, or worse.

Clearly the enormous interest in this subject and the comments we’ve received suggests evidence of both great compassion as well as great ignorance. We don’t claim to be the final authorities on the subject of how humans do or should behave with wild creatures. We’ve learned a lot from a variety of well written e-mails. I’ve been shocked at how crass some can be, but also deeply touched by the simple appreciation and good will of others. I never would have thought that our humble tableau would have struck such a deep chord. I pray we all learn something useful.