Nonnymus wrote:

> Having lived in Raleigh NC, let me assure you that the description of
> the deer hind quarter is about right. In the Carolinas, deer are very
> small. I'd say they are about the size of a large Doberman. They run in
> herds in even the urban areas, grazing anything that grows. You can't
> have a decent flower bed or shrubs if you live in the suburbs or (worse
> yet) the boondocks. Day Lily's and Hosta come up and are grazed off
> just as the buds begin to open. Shrubs are stripped of everything up to
> about 3' in height. Fruit trees have no limbs that are closer to about
> 5' to the ground. The reason is that deer will rear up on their hind
> legs and use their front legs to break off all branches to get the
> apple, pear, peach etc.
>
> We lived in the boonies and one night my daughter arrived home about
> 10:00a. She spotted at least a dozen deer inside our garage, eating the
> dogfood we'd left out. One was using the apple tree technique on the
> food dispenser over the dog's dish.
>
> I suspect that the size of eastern deer is a function of the food
> supply. There are just too many deer.

Wow, never heard of deer that small. We had small deer where
I hunted when I was young in NW PA but even they were around
110 or so. Seen deer in NY, PA, and Maine (but they have
monsters up there), never seen or heard of deer that small
before. Other than fawn. ;-)

Not trying to start anything, I just can imagine a deer with
only four pounds of meat on the hind quarter.


--
Steve