Large Fierce Mammal

My Esteemed Friend Martin, of Crime Scene Man fame was once in the employ of a police agency in a small Nova Scotia town that had come to contain a population of White Tail Deer of, let us say, unsound proportions. One day, while on patrol, he was driving a street running along the edge of a field that met the roadway in a steep descent so anything approaching the pavement from that direction would be above a driver’s lines of sight until very near. That’s how he hit a Deer, breaking a headlight and I don’t remember what all else.

The vehicle he was driving was sent to the repair shop his employer used for such things and was returned to service with speed, good as new. Until on his first shift back from days off, my Esteemed Friend Martin took it on patrol, drove along the same road at the base of the same field, and suddenly heard a loud thump on a rear door. That was when a Deer hit him. The door was crumpled a might, and I don’t remember what all else, but back to the shop it went with orders from the Chief of Police for it, and the rest of the fleet, to be fitted with “deer whistles” in case whatever was causing Martin’s one-man epidemic was catching.

As to the Deer in question, in both cases they got up and ran off in the way Deer have of absorbing unbelievable trauma and then running away to either heal, or pause to check if they’re being followed, feel unwell, lay down, and expire.

Now on to more recent events.

Just before 10:00 Atlantic Time on the morning of Tuesday, 29 October 2024, I was driving back to base from a call in Bridgewater when a “funny” thing happened. Only two days prior, Mrs. LFM and I were talking about close calls with wildlife and I had said, not for the first time, that in 50 years of driving automobiles, and notwithstanding close calls, I had never hit a Deer. In that way where you think or speak of someone only to have them call or meet you in the street shortly after, the Universe responded …

See what I mean about absorbing unbelievable trauma and then running away?

None of the damage rendered my vehicle undrivable and after documenting the situation further while stopped at the scene, I continued on to include starting an insurance claim in what remained of my day.

As I customarily use a much smaller weapon than a Ford Explorer to hunt White Tails, and have grown accustomed to better felling performance than you’ve seen here, I can tell you I was frankly disappointed at such dismal performance.

And even I am gobsmacked at the lack of profanity.