Deer & Deer Hunting is written and edited for serious, year-round hunting enthusiasts, focusing on hunting techniques, deer biology and behavior, deer management, habitat requirements, the natural history of deer and hunting ethics
What you’re seeing is not a hoax. It is the weirdest whitetail malady I’ve seen in my 27 years of working here at D&DH. I first reported on this bizarre fawn in the late 1990s. Even back then, some of the weirdest things I had seen were a doe that had five fawns; a deer that was born without ears; and a Texas buck that managed to live several years with a base-ballsized rock wedged firmly in its lower jaw. Yes, those were truly bizarre discoveries, but the one you’re looking at right now surely tops them all. I received this photo from Officer Brad Stoner of the LaCrosse Police Department (WI). Stoner’s co-worker, Lt. Bob Lawrence, took the photos of this bizarre eight-legged fawn while investigating a car-deer collision…
WE HEAR ABOUT trail camera theft all the time, but I never for a moment thought it would happen to me. I tend to see the best in people, and would just assume that this couldn’t happen where I live. I was wrong. Let me set the stage for you. I live in an area where there is no hunting at all, a private community bordering a nature conservancy. I love watching the wildlife and I put up trail cameras in areas where I know there is a lot of wildlife traffic. I put two cameras way back in my swamp area that has what is called a hammock, a piece of dry land. I stack one camera set on video and a lower one set on still pictures. Closer…
Maybe you imagine Bambi as a doe fawn, with big, friendly eyes, giant eyelashes, and beauty spots covering her adorable cartoon body. Maybe you’re familiar with Bambi’s little besties, a bunny named Thumper and a skunk called Flower. Maybe you thought Bambi was purely for children, a Disney creation that helped launch an entertainment empire of cartoon classics. Maybe you thought Bambi was a whitetail deer. And maybe you thought the author was a wonderful writer of children’s stories. BAMBI — MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE All of that would be wrong — all except for the beauty spots. Bambi was a buck, not a doe. Bambi, the cutest caricature of all forest friends, did talk to other woodland citizenry but Thumper and Flower were not among them. Absent from…
Walt Disney took countless liberties in tailoring the story of Bambi to a children’s audience. In Disney’s animated rendition, all the animals gather to greet Bambi at his birth and congratulate his mother. The owl is not only wise, he protects small animals rather than prey on them. Skunks hibernate. All animals mate in the springtime — birds, skunks, rabbits, even deer. The owl explains how they become “twitterpated,” overcome by human-like romantic feelings. Bambi’s wears his first antlers in the springtime. Hunters invade the woods as winter turns to spring and the green grasses emerge. That’s when Bambi’s mother is shot and killed. Poachers are not differentiated from hunters and man is indiscriminate in what he shoots. Even worse, heartless hunters ignite raging forest fires and destroy wildlife habitat.…
Bambi has a simple plot that lends itself to easy visualization. He is born in the spring in a thicket. His mother (in the novel she has no name) meets every need and educates Bambi in the ways of survival. Along the way he meets various animals. Soon Bambi meets his Aunt Ena and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. The young ones encounter “princes,” bucks with crowns on their heads. The bucks are their fathers, but have little to do with Bambi, Faline and Gobo. The animals refer to humans as “He” or “Him,” and credits humans with dangerous, god-like power. “He” has a terrifying third hand which can reach out to injure and kill with thunder. When Bambi grows his own crown “He” invades the forest and kills…
Bambi and baseball icon Babe Ruth had something in common. Ruth was nicknamed “The Bambino,” the Italian word for baby which evolved into “Babe.” Bambi is a shortened version of bambino. Bambi and The Bambino were contemporaries. Bambi was published in 1923 and translated into English in 1928, right in the middle of Ruth’s career which spanned 1914 to 1935. But the Sultan of Swat had no connection to the fictional fawn beyond the similar names. Felix Salten (1869-1945), the Austrian author of Bambi, was Jewish, born in Budapest, Hungary as Siegmund Salzmann and was the grandson of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He was a well-known political writer and social critic, so the Nazis had plenty of reason to be suspicious of his writing. He composed influential works both before…
