I haven't had a Halloween costume for forever, but this year I am inclined to step out as a zombie deer and terrorize the neighborhood. Here's why — I believe that the deer are rapidly adapting to their new reality and doing things they never did before.
Deer have to deal with a tough situation around here. They have eaten everything there is to eat in the woods and are fenced out of all the palatable portions of the rest. This means that roadsides and unprotected lawns are all that's left to keep an exploding deer population fed. In addition, the surprise fall drought we are experiencing here just makes things worse for them.
Several recent occurrences support my conclusion that deer are evolving fast. First, they are eating plants that they never do. My columbine, mildly toxic to mammals, made it through the summer only to be chomped in a single night down to its stems. The deer finished off a dogwood sapling I had grown from seed, gobbled a friend's sweet peas, tore up my marigolds, and even had a taste of purple shiso, though they apparently spat it out.
As if their expanded tastes weren't threatening enough, deer are now comfortable scampering up outdoor stairs to get at the good stuff. A report comes from a Shelter Island builder that a deer or several deer climbed like ninja onto his high wooden deck to get at tomatoes from above, mowing the plants down like pigs at a trough. Speaking of pigs, my sister recently observed deer rooting up her grass like hogs, I suspect in search of roots and tubers on which to subsist.
You have to appreciate the internet, which is full of claims that deer will eat people, too. Well, maybe not live, moving people, but that could be coming. Researchers at Texas State University left a human body in the woods in view of an automatic trail camera and, yes, captured images of a doe causally munching on a rib, staring straight into the lens. I thought of Quint in "Jaws" — "Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes after ya, he doesn't seem to be livin' until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white, and then — aww. . . ."
Ever wonder what happens when a body is donated to science? Now we know. You might end up as a hungry deer's nom noms. We're doomed. Doomed, I tell you!