It is totally legal, but I disagree with the justified part. I aways figured that a farmer that couldn't afford to feed a few deer was just about to broke to be in business. Maybe he should sell and let someone with a little more financing take over.
The average deer eats 8 lbs of forage per 100lbs of body weight per day.
Over the course of a season (6 mos), them 40 deer would eat about 57,600 lbs of crop.
That more than “a few”
Do you understand how much damage a herd of deer can do to a farm?
Your reasoning is like complaining about the anti-theft sensors at stores, reasoning that “a shopkeeper that can’t afford a little shoplifting was just about too broke to be in business”.
We’re not talking “a few deer”, we’re talking a LOT, as in 40 were just the ones he actually managed to shoot.