Unresolved Issues With the Animal Kingdom: Deer

I like to believe I am a rational person so I will explain this as rationally as possible: I am afraid of deer.

Yes. Bambi-and-friends-frolicking-through-the-woods-eating-grass deer. They unsettle me the way horror movies disturb toddlers.

Did you know that more people die in car versus deer accidents than deer? A Park Ranger in Yellowstone told me that. They’re just small enough to be flung up onto the windshield, but just large enough to smash through the glass and lacerate you with their razor-sharp hooves. That’s right. They have razor-sharp hooves.

Why, you may ask, does a deer need sharp hooves? They do not need to kill to eat, nor do they dig, or do anything with their feet but walk-anything but fight, that is. Their sharp hooves are supposedly for “self-defense”, so clearly they are fighting something. All the members of the alces family attack threats to their young in a specific manner: they rear up on their hind legs, then smash their pointy front feet into the hapless victim’s skull with the force of their entire body. It’s true; it happened to my great-great grandmother. She survived by waiting until the animal reared and then stepping calmly just outside hoof range, over and over again. Eventually the ungulate’s hamstring was bitten by a dog and the fight ended. This doesn’t seem like a defensive maneuver to me.

Deer have no concept of personal space, or dignity. They wander into people’s yards and eat the grass off of graves in cemeteries. They clearly have no respect for our dead or our living. They’ve been left by the side of the road bleeding to death at the mercy of cruel motorists too many times and now they’re out for revenge. When they’re munching the lush green on grandma’s grave, they’re using those uncommonly large eyes to say “You killed my great-grandfather, and now you must pay. Om nom nom.”

We’ve pushed them off their land and destroyed their food sources, eaten their brethren, and hit them with our cars. It was only a matter of time before a major uprising began. It is my firm belief that they are gathering together to fight the ultimate fight against mankind. Soon, they will control us with their hypnotic eyes, hooves to our backs as we slave to restore their forest and protect them from other natural enemies. They will find every last trophy head and place them over our beds, a sick reminder of how the tables have turned.

Slowly, they will become more sadistic. The ritual killings will increase and deer will control all species. These plans have been in the works since the first deer-human battles, and the deer will stop at nothing to reclaim their pride. When the deer apocalypse comes, and you don’t have your bear-guarded shelter prepared, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Bambi’s mother had it coming.