But they are being debated nonetheless these days. The shooting of Buck, a deer that a family tried to domesticate in St. Georges, has stirred controversy. Officers from the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control had no choice but to shoot Buck when he resisted efforts to capture him. That several people, including some children, witnessed this is a pity. But it never would have happened had the family who adopted the deer turned it over to authorities as soon as they found him as a fawn.
Environmental experts say the first and most serious mistake was keeping the deer.
When a young fawn is found, the mother often is just yards away waiting for the humans to leave so she can recover her offspring. In Buck's case, that didn't happen. Had the deer been taken at once to a wildlife rehabilitator, there might have been a chance he could have been returned to the wild while young. But a grown seven-point buck that depends on garden plots and regular human feeding would not live long in the woods. He would have died a slow death of starvation.