Free Republic

<p>A red and white hand-lettered sign reading "Welcome Hunters" still hung outside the concrete block building in Hays yesterday where 400 deer carcasses lay rotting, after a seasonal deer processor abandoned the business.</p> <p>More than 100 of the dead deer could be seen staring glassy-eyed from the back of an open rental truck parked in front of the building at 271 Baldwin Road. A like number were stuffed so tightly into a trailer beside the building that heads and legs protruded from under the door. Other deer heads, hooves and assorted trimmings filled two dozen 55-gallon drums.</p>

<p>The coffee's been brewed, the pastries are freshly baked and the eggs and bacon await frying.</p> <p>Fear not, hungry deer hunters, restaurants and markets in Claysville, Washington County, are ready for your visit today, the first day for hunting deer with firearms.</p>

Very few people like the idea of shooting Bambi's mother. But there may be no better way to slow the rapid expansion of deer populations that are devastating ecosystems in many areas of the country. At least 20 million white-tailed deer are ranging the nation at the moment, a huge jump from only 500,000 in 1900, according to a recent report by Andrew C. Revkin in The Times. They plunder farm crops and alter the ecology of forests by eating the low-lying vegetation and destroying the seedlings needed for new growth. In the process, they displace many smaller animals...

It was a Friday evening, and Cynthia Fain was off to do an errand. As she came out of her apartment complex in Gaithersburg, "I saw a deer lying on the side of the road," Cynthia says. "I realized he had just been hit by a motorist." Cynthia approached the obviously dying animal "to see what help I could offer." Meanwhile, a security guard called Montgomery County police, and a crowd (including several children) began to gather. "I sat on the curb and stroked the deer's head," Cynthia writes. "He responded by opening his eyes and putting his head in...