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Around these parts we have what some what people might say is a little bit of a deer problem.  Because we strictly regulate hunting and because we have killed off all their natural predators the deer in our area multiply rapidly.  Occasionally they become a nuisance to the city dwellers because they eat everything that they can.  Shrubs, trees and flowers are usually all gone.  Most people around here are smart enough to plant things that the deer don’t like to eat.  But it’s pretty normal to see new non-native person planting things that the deer absolutely love and then later see them upset because the deer ate their new plantings overnight.

When the city feels that the problem has really gotten out of hand they will usually bring in experienced, expensive hunters to kill the deer.  Why they do this I’m not sure.  I guess because people just can’t deal with their plants being eaten.  It’s not like they cause problems on the road.  I have rarely ever seen a deer hit by a car in the city, although I have seen plenty of them when biking around and frankly almost had a head on collision with one once.  I guess this is another example of the government caving to the demands of the citizens on something that could be handled by nature.  While I’m not saying we should have bobcats or cougars in the city, nature will control the deer population based on the availability of food for them.

When the city does this they usually have the meat processed and it’s given away to citizens who wish to have some.  Last year I picked some up.  Hey, it’s free; I figured we could give it a shot.  It wasn’t totally bad.  It certainly had a different taste than cow meat.   I thought the flavor was a little strong.  I preferred to have it mixed into a dish with flavor (like goulash) rather than just on it’s own.  I made hamburgers once.  Yuck!  It’s probably just my tastes that aren’t adapted.  Whenever I fed it to someone I had to tell a small white lie and say it was hamburger.  People didn’t want to eat it otherwise.  

 I also have a problem around my house with rabbits.  Rabbits everywhere eating everything they can.  While I’ve often thought how nice it would be to be rid of them I’m not sure I’m willing to go to the extreme that this gentleman is.  I haven’t felt the need to borrow the neighbors trap yet and export them somewhere else, but I am slowly taking away some of their hiding places.  Perhaps they’ll leave on their own.

The viewpoint on the link brought up an interesting point to me though when I was thinking about all of this.  If times get tough and people are struggling to feed themselves will they resort to eating urban animals?  Rabbits, ducks, geese, cats, dogs, mice and more would all be fair game.  I know people already eat duck and rabbit, and they pay a high price for those items.  I know some farmers raise rabbits for people to purchase, just as they do cows, chickens and pigs, but these products aren’t widely accepted as a meat source.  When meat products are more difficult to come by will our range of tastes change?  Will we be happy to eat deer meat or rabbit meat?  I can remember my grandmother-in-law talking about how they hunted rabbits on their farm in southern Missouri when she was growing up.  Is that something we’ll go back to?  Human nature being what it is, I’m sure people will go back to eating a more varied diet, by necessity, but I wonder about the bumps in the road.

Because our city won’t allow backyard chickens I’ve given thought to the idea of raising some rabbits in the backyard.  They are allowed and I could really use their wastes in the garden.  But what about slaughtering them?  I know I don’t have the stomach for it.  Yeah, yeah I know, some people will say that if you can’t do it yourself then you should be meat-free, but I just prefer to outsource that part of the job.  Would it be cost effective to just have a few slaughtered at a meat locker?  I’m not sure.  Should I perhaps keep eating the deer meat that the city gives out so it will become part of our normal diet?

It seems that all I’ve accomplished here is to raise more questions than answers.  But I wonder if it came down to starvation or a squirrel how many of us would be ready to take that final step?  It’s not like we aren’t doing something that’s been done for centuries.  As far as I can tell from history any animal was fair game.  The only reason we feel differently today is because we’ve built our society around a few mainstay animals and have lost the intense need that our ancestors had to get a protein source whenever they could, regardless of what that source might be.