Brendan, no offense taken. Especially considering where you live I can see that you might not understand. Pen's links demonstrate the point perfectly. There are nearly as many deer as people in PA. Nearly everyone I know has hit or narrowly missed deer on the highway. That is not a pleasant way for one of them to die. My neighbor has had deer in her back yard eating her flower gardens bare. It's really something when an 80 yr old lady tells you to shoot as many of them as you can! At this level of over-population hunting becomes pest control. The deer would face famine unless the population were brought to a manageable level through hunting. Their natural predators have been wiped out.
Although it is true that I don't need the food, I use it. Really I see no ethical difference between eating a deer I shot myself and eating a steak in a restaurant. Every deer my father, brother, grandfather, uncle, or myself shoot is eaten by someone, unless it's sick. Many times the meat goes to friends and family, occasionally to people who can't afford to buy meat in the store. We don't take wild shots, most of the time we manage to make a clean kill by shooting them through the lungs. My brother has even shot two different ones in the head! That's the most humane death I can imagine. While it is true that not every shot is an instant kill, we do our best to track and finish off any wounded animals.
hollowdweller, I haven't had the opportunity to hunt in GA yet. From what I hear, the deer in GA aren't much compared to those in PA. A SFC I worked with in Korea grew up in PA, right near where I live, and later hunted in GA. He said the deer were about the size of dogs.
Up in PA they feed on corn and hayfields, several of the doe I've shot over the years were extremely fat even in the dead of winter!
What did that big boy weigh??
