It looked as if a whole herd of deer had held a meeting in the open area around the bear box. The deer, like the bear, is one of the great symbols of the natural world, but the deer means Innocence. Keith and Bierstadt sometimes included deer in their landscapes. This established the scene as one fresh from the hand of the Creator, unsullied by Man. For Ansel Adams, innocence meant no snakes in the sky, for Bierstadt, it meant deer at peace in the Garden.
Tourists always love to see deer.
That Prove The Obvious that found that yes, if you ask people in natural areas what animal they would most like to see, more will say deer and rabbits than spiders and scorpions. Rangers in Yosemite always have a hard time convincing tourists from New Jersey not to try to pet the deer. Sometimes the deer panic and lash out with their hooves, injuring or occasionally killing. The animals of Yosemite Valley are used to noise, confusion, and crazy tourists waving their arms at them as they try to nibble on a bush or rustle a discarded candy bar. The ones in the backcountry are more circumspect.