To the editor:

In 2008, the week of New Year’s, I saw in one of my fields three does. One was walking on three legs.

Her right knee was crushed and the size of a softball. All she would do was drag her complete leg.

She was either hit by a vehicle, shot during hunting season or attacked by coyotes. She was thin, weak and it seemed that even her family had disowned her. They would push her away from the apples on the ground.

It was doubtful she would survive the winter.

In 2009, we had a bumper apple crop. I saw her maybe four times during the year. Again, she was alone and still weak.

The next year, 2010, was a year of few apples, but an abundance of wild pears. During this time frame, I saw her maybe five times. She again was alone. She looked weak and thin.

In 2011, I never say her once. I came to realize that she had fallen prey to either a hunter or a pack of coyotes.

Well, folks, on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012, at 5 p. m., she was back in my field eating wild grass. She has gained weight back, and her gleaming coat looked so beautiful under a winter moon.

This poor creature has survived four hunting seasons, four winters and the constant menace of vicious coyotes, under such a handicap.

If we humans had half the will of this deer, our world would indeed be such a better place.

Irving ‘Sonny’ Brackett,
Bowdoinham

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