(Host) Commentator Willem Lange reflects that even in this quiet part of the world, little calamities are everywhere.
(Lange) The front door opened with a jerk. Mother shouted: “Will! The dogs have a deer down in the swamp!” I rumbled out the front door, grabbing my cane as I went, and thinking, What dogs? Dogs can’t catch a deer this time of year!
I plowed through the brush toward the barking and bleating. There was movement across the brook bed. Black and black-and-white, two of ’em. What were they after?
It was one of the fawns we’d watched growing in the swamp all summer. It lay on its side in brown popple leaves, crying with pain and fear. The dogs danced around it, barking excitedly, saw me coming, and redoubled their efforts.
The black-and-white one ran away about 30 feet. The black one, with his blood up, was ready to fight me over his prize. He backed away, keeping about three feet beyond the end of my cane, and when I bent to look at the deer, circled behind me. I kept him where I could see him.
It was one of the fawns, all right, now grown to a button buck. When I bent over him, he bawled, struggled to his feet, took two ungainly leaps, and collapsed in a tangle.
I’ve wondered for decades at the revulsion most of us feel for dogs chasing deer. What we justify for ourselves is a capital offense for a dog. I’m not making a case for the dog; if that black devil had danced just a little closer, I’d have brained him, for sure.
It’s a Catch-22. Deer are the most regulated and protected animal in the woods. So whoever comes upon the scene of dog predation can do almost nothing about it. He can’t legally shoot the dogs; if the deer is suffering, but not quite dead, he can’t legally kill it; if he knows a place where the animal might get veterinary attention, he can’t legally transport it.
Mother called the police, and a cop showed up. When he got out of his car, the black dog retreated, and we couldn’t catch him. A Conservation Officer was on the way. So we stood there, waiting and chatting, while twenty feet away in the leaves lay the deer, quietly breathing, eyes rolled back in his head, gazing helplessly at the sky.
The Conservation Officer, when he arrived, made it plain there was only one possible end to this drama. Mother retreated sobbing to the house. Two minutes later there came the sounds of a muffled shot and a truck driving away.
Nothing about this is simple. Did we make the deer vulnerable by not scaring him away? Could he have been saved? What for – a different hunter? Would we take care of it ourselves another time? Is that the end of it? I wish it were. But I’m looking everywhere for a couple of dogs.
This is Willem Lange up in Etna, New Hampshire, and I gotta get back to work.
Willem Lange is a contractor, writer and storyteller who lives in Etna, New Hampshire. He spoke from our studio in Norwich.