Authorities Kill Deer at New Jersey Strip Mall

Although this story will never reach the evening news, this tragic story will stay with me for a very long time. Everyone always says there are way too many deer living in this country. Beautiful Hunterdon County, NJ, is well known for its deer, as there are many forests, farm lands, streams, parks and other natural settings where wildlife runs free. Many untouched areas are being cleared away and strip malls and developments are being put up in their places, forcing animals on the run. There are, however, remote areas where people live and share the land with deer. I have seen deer taking shade under a maple tree on the front lawn of someone's house. I have seen does and their babies walk across my property. I have had deer eating apples that have fallen off a tree in my back yard. I've had baby raccoons under my pool deck, baby bunnies in my front yard, foxes crossing the street or walking along the farm behind me. Unfortunately not every animal is safe. They get hit by cars, for example. But what happens when a wild animal finds its way into the heart of a busy strip mall?

I know deer usually don't come out until dawn or dusk, but today, Mother's Day, just after noon, as I was working in my store, we started hearing a rumbling sound, like something was being bumped every few seconds. My co-worker came to me and said a deer was running back and forth passed our store windows, bumping its face into each panel. We hurried up front to see what was happening, and sure enough, a young deer was running between 3 stores, back and forth at the windows trying to find a way out. It had about 5 feet of space between the store fronts and the garden beds placed along the length of the strip mall to run. Two police officers and someone from animal control was also out there. The rescuer had an animal release pole in his hand, trying to "ring" the deer with the loop at the end. After quite some time they managed to finally close in on the deer and get the loop over its neck. At this point the deer had laid down. It did not even struggle as they stood over him. An instant sigh of relief came over both of us as we watched from the window thinking they would get it back to the woods. But then the man dragged the deer about 6 feet over to the flowerbed, its paw I noticed was bent under and its back leg sort of dragged as it was being pulled by its neck. The deer was running with no limp prior to it being captured. The man hoisted its head up with the stick onto the brick ledge of the flowerbed, then the rest of his body. In an instant he shot the deer right there. We screamed in horror as we heard the gun fire. From the time they cornered it to the time they killed it, was a matter of 60 seconds. At that point I could not control my crying and had to leave the scene.

My 3^rd co-worker came out from the back asking what was happening when she saw us crying. She proceeded to the front of the store and saw the rescuer drag the deer back down to the ground, raised his arm and gaffed the deer in the neck and then drag it to the pickup truck which was another 20 feet away, again, in front of everyone. The deer was then placed on the tailgate of the pickup and taken away. About an hour later I had to force myself to go outside with a bucket and mop to wash down all the panels of my front windows and doors. As the deer ran from window to window it smacked its face into the brick dividers and the windows. It was terrified. Blood and fur smeared the entire length of 3 stores' windows. Now I realize the deer may have had internal injuries. I do not know how much of an ordeal the deer had prior to showing up at our strip mall, but it was running, not limping, back and forth and to see it all of a sudden be still and lay down within seconds of running and being dragged the way it was, something was not right. I know animals need to be put down when injured but there is a time and place for all that. No stun gun, no tranquilizer needle to be seen, no blanket, no warning, no nothing, all in front of the general public, including small children. BANG. Customers who came in afterwords voiced their anger about how everything was handled. After I had washed all my windows, I then took the bucket and dumped the water out onto the pool of blood they left behind on the brick ledge of the flowerbed they killed it on. I could not leave all the blood there, it was disgraceful. A couple of hours went by when finally someone showed up to clean the sidewalk.

Is this how animals are treated everywhere when they've accidentally managed to get out of their environment? I hope I never witness an ordeal like this ever again in my life. It was cruel.