Weep Not for the Fawn

The following essay is not new. Although it has been circulating around the bowhunting community for decades, its pro-hunting message is as timely today as it was when first penned by an unnamed writer years ago. I recently saw it in a copy of Bowhunter... and decided to share it with you!
Two of the most appealing animals we know are the lamb and the fawn. The reasons for this are obvious; both are delicately beautiful little creatures, gentle and vulnerable.
Yet the roles these two animals play in our world are quite different. At first glance it might seem that the lamb has the better deal. Usually he will be born to a well-fed mother on a farm or sheep ranch, within the collective security of a large flock, or even the protective walls of a barn. The odds are great that his lifetime will be equally peaceful, for he is a domisticated animal, a commodity of commercial value from the moment he is born.
The fawn, on the other hand, is born wild, often to a half-starved mother still suffering from the rigors of a severe winter that taxed to the limit her ability to simply survive. He is in danger from the minute he is dropped - from the elements, from disease (there are no veterinarians in the woods) and from a variety of predators. Before he reaches a year's growth, he also will have to face winter's chilling temperatures, deep snows and a slim larder in direct competition with his large relatives who can obtain food from a browse line that may be beyond his reach. If the food supply is limited by overpopulation and the winter is too long or too severe, he will be the first to starve.
There was a time, ages back, when the lamb's destiny would have been similar to the fawn's, but along the way nature's most intelligent and resourceful predator - man - discovered that it was much easier to guarantee a food supply by culling tame animals from a captive flock than by the riskier method of hunting the wild ones whose speed and senses were superior to his. So certain animals were gradually converted to a form of benevolent captivity we call domestication.
By chance and other factors, several varieties of sheep were so selected. The deer were not. Then, over the centuries, man's food-gathering activities, like others, became more specialized. No longer do we gather and butcher our lambs individually; most of us pay others to do this for us. Obviously, it is more efficient this way.
The practice has now gone on for so long that when we select a neatly wrapped package of lamb chops from the meat counter, we often forget where they came from and how they got there - and that part of their price goes to pay our specialized, proxy predator.
The dinner table may also be in the fawn's future some day, for venison is quite delicious, and there are still those who find challenge and enjoyment in gathering some of their food by the older, riskier method called hunting. But the odds remain in the favor of the deer, as much as 20 to one in his favor at times. More likely, he will eventually succumb to starvation, disease, harassment from some free-running pet dog or a speeding auto on that super highway we've recently cut through his range. In any event, few deer die of old age.
Frequently we hear from those who claim to weep for the fawn because his life someday, when he grows up, may end up at the hands of the hunter. It is curious that we never hear them weep for the lamb.
We say, weep not for the pheasant but for the barnyard chicken, not for the antelope but for the feedlot steer, not for the fawn but for the lamb. For, if you had your choice of being a fawn or a lamb, which would you choose?

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