I have been a resident of Sparta for 18 years. I love it here - I love the trees, the miles and endless stretches of woodlands, which even on clouded days appear beautiful in their grim and dour multitude through which our highways and backroads sinuate.
However, every rose has its thorns and one such “demerit” of this township is the overpopulation of deer.
Of course, a deer, like any other animal, is Mother Nature’s gift to us and should be treated as such - with respect, dignity, and due consideration.
I can’t help but feel a little hypocritical as I write this, though, considering the fact that I was furiously chasing deer from my lawn this afternoon after my dog (whom I’ve owned since I was 14) came home from the vet with stiches on his leg and a cone around his neck.
According to my parents, an unfortunate incident occurred this afternoon whereby a gaggle of deer was congregating in our backyard and my dog, having chased after them, was injured amidst the fray of hooves and frenetic stomping.
Now, is such an incident unusual in a rustic community like our own?
Of course not, but there really should not be gangs of deer feeding on peoples’ lawns all the way up and down my block.
Comparatively speaking, I don’t even live in a part of Sparta that is even that “rural.”
I know this town like the back of my hand and I can definitively state that it is wrong to feed animals that you do not own for the following reasons:
• Overpopulation, which is detrimental to both the community of Sparta and our beautiful ecosystem.
• Domestication. These deer are not our pets: let us shy away from infantilizing animals we don’t own and - as can be seen in my experience - can be dangerous to ourselves and others.
• Dependency. It is not good to form inchoate relationships with animals that are quite literally born and bred to survive off the land and its abundance. I, for one, am not particularly worried about the “hinds” of Sussex County starving - they can walk a few yards down my block and find a cornucopia of nature’s resources amidst the woods that surrounds us all.
The events of this afternoon are not the first in my experience: I have had multiple occurrences of a former dog of mine chasing after fawns and mothers who “wandered” into our yard because the people of my neighborhood feed them broccoli outside like St. Francis Of Assisi.
One time, a doe got caught and impaled herself on our fence while her children watched nearby. The poor animal was in so much pain that she began to wail and my dad had to heave her over as blood and milk spurted out of her stomach.
Without eliminating sympathy entirely for these animals, it is important to keep in mind that they are, of course, not humans - and yet neither cars, joggers, dogs nor even fireworks seem to scare the deer of our neighborhood, an unhealthy mindset for our friends from the forest considering the fact that humans have the ability to kill and eat them (according to the laws of nature).
I hate to make this rant twofold but many of these such “incidents” (which I am sure my neighbors are plagued with daily, dog-lovers or not) occur in an area of Sparta where, just up the street, people own one to three canines of their own.
Unfortunately, however, we Spartans seem to exhibit more care for our non-domesticated livestock than our own pets.
I was once assaulted by three dogs at once while walking my own up the street. I can recall two different houses up there with not-too-upstanding electric fences through which two large black Labs and two terriers often walk right through, crossing over to the other side of the road.
My dad, while walking our dog nearby, was bit in the ankle while defending our pet and had to get penicillin shots before being diagnosed with COVID a week later.
Let’s start taking responsibility for the animals we own and leave the rest to the course of Mother Nature, eh?
Thank you.
P.S. The statewide “General Hunting” period runs from Jan. 14-23, ample time for the hunters of the Garden State to abet in ameliorating this problem safely and responsibly. I am not advocating the mass immolation of every single buck we see on the side of the highway; however, I feel obligated to write this ... exhortation as my dog literally cries beside me and I ruminate about how deer control has been a problem since I was a little kid. In old times, before many of us even came to this country, Native Americans (e.g., the Plains Indians of the western frontier) would use almost every single part of the wildlife they hunted, from the food they ate to the clothes they donned to the materials which confected their homes. I know a childhood friend whose father used to literally hunt deer, hang them in his garage to skin and prepare them for dinner shortly thereafter. We should respect and nurture the animals of our surrounding wildlife, but part of this indispensable relationship with our natural community is taking responsibility for our actions and how they affect the deer population.
Jack D’Angelis
Sparta