Lately I've been trying to wrap my arms around deer. Not literally, of course, but rather around the challenge that deer pose for anyone who loves nature.

Photo by Steven Cohen.

Scientific studies have shown repeatedly that the carrying capacity of most natural areas is 10 to 15 deer per square mile. That's best for the deer and the rest of the ecosystem.

In Beverly Shores, Indiana, however, there are approximately 300 deer in three square miles. "It's a disaster ecologically," says resident Phil Dickerman, who has helped to launch a citizen's committee for responsible deer management — the Environmental Restoration Group — in town.

The town board had approved some culls, but the numbers of deer killed were so small that they basically equaled the birth rate, not enough to prevent the devastating impact to the area. "The bird population is way down, by some reckoning by about 70 percent," Dickerman says, "because there's no undercover left to protect them and the erosion is serious. The only thing that grows is garlic mustard and quite a few people have put up fences with netting to keep the deer out."

Four members of resident Jim Klora's family alone have been in accidents involving deer. The town erected a sign warning people not to feed the deer at the intersection of Broadway and Beverly, where many people often stopped to offer food from their cars.

As LeAnn Spencer's article on our "Deer Dilemma" shows, to have healthy ecosystems in our region — including healthy deer — we need to limit the numbers of deer in most places. Most people see the clear reasoning behind this conclusion. But our fractious relationship with deer is, in many communities, not a matter of reason at all. It's a matter of emotion: the thrill and delight we feel when seeing these graceful animals, the fear and discomfort we feel about our role as predators, the confusion we feel in beginning to treat wild animals as pets. For, make no mistake, that is what is happening. By feeding deer (as many people do by setting out bushels of corn or apples), by promoting birth control programs so that deer won't reproduce (as some communities seek to do), we are blurring the lines between wild and domesticated.

The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan notes that pets exist for human pleasure and convenience. Feeding deer allows us to feel benign and generous, to delight in our proximity to these graceful wild beings. Feeding deer provides us with entertainment and allows us to express affection without being compelled to come to terms with the consequences of our actions — namely, that we are not ultimately helping the deer.

Tom Heberlein, University of Wisconsin rural sociologist, has proposed requiring the purchase of feeding permits for all those who benefit from feeding deer, either by observing them or using bait for hunting. In the past two decades, he notes, "there has been a huge growth in the number of people who feed deer and other large animals around their homes and cabins so they can watch the animals, or keep large populations close to their property, or just because they get joy from nurturing wildlife. These people benefit just as the unsuccessful hunter gets joy from the hunt, even though neither kill deer. But the hunter pays a license fee, and an 11 percent tax on guns, ammo, and archery gear, while the feeder pays nothing." And much of the hunter's costs go back into programs to protect the health of deer and their habitat.

A radical proposition, no doubt, but one that compels us to reflect critically on our relationship with deer. Let's not treat wild deer like pets. Let's accept with utmost humility our role in the ecosystem, manage the herds for the benefit of deer, people, and other living things, and be thankful in all seasons that we live among thrilling wild creatures.