
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990                   TAG: 9005110657
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RIPPLING RIBS

LATELY, five deer have been hanging around the back yard. They come around midmorning and again in the late afternoon and nose around for whatever clover they can find.

The other morning I looked out the window and there they stood - so close I could see the flies on their flanks. Later that evening they were back, and when I went out the door they just barely ambled over into the edge of the woods.

I think these five are two does and three youngsters, but they're more a haphazard collection than a group. You'd never think to call them a herd; they don't stand that close together. They don't need each others' company that much.

The morning they stood so close, I tried to determine their sexes exactly. But even with the binoculars I couldn't see what I needed to see to be sure. This must be a part of personal identity that deer are discreet about.

It's not remarkable to see deer around. It's just remarkable to me to see them so close. Maybe hunters see deer this closely, but it was a first for me. More usually I see deer standing across a pasture. Once I looked up from the lawn mower and saw a deer on a ridge to the south.

But these five deer . . . if I'd been standing outside instead of behind a window, I would have been able to smell them. And I was astonished at their slenderness. Their ribs rippled starkly under their molting fur. Seen this close, I couldn't help but wonder, "Where does the meat come from?"

I know all the deer in the woods aren't Bambi. I believe hunting has its place, now, in the ecosystem. I've heard farmers and foresters say so; I've lost enough plants of my own. But why would anyone think to shoot such an animal in the first place? What would be the use for the hungry?

Several summers ago an orphaned fawn stumbled into our yard. He - or she - knew enough to bolt whenever we happened too close. But he didn't know enough to bound away if he could even see the woods.

One twilight, sometime after we'd first spotted the orphan, a wary doe walked through the front yard with two fawns: one that she kept close to her flank, and another tag-along that she tolerated. She looked sleek and fat in the thick pink light of evening. Her own fawn was as plump as she. But the orphan, though lively, was wispy and light-boned, as thin as these five deer this summer, these haphazard ragamuffins: brazen enough to get out in the clear for the clover, but too innocent to be wary.

by CNB