Three-Legged Deer and the Hard Pennsylvania Winter - Yahoo! News

Three-Legged Deer and the Hard Pennsylvania Winter - Yahoo! News One of the saddest sights in the world is a three-legged deer. We saw one in the winter of the first year we moved here. It was a year of soft snow, but it was cold.

It was just after the deer season we saw the pathetic creature, its leg still attached, and dangling. You could see a bit of red meat exposed to the air, and the better upper leg was swollen. My wife called the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

My wife is one of those animal lovers who won't let a person rest so long as there's a suffering animal in the world. There are lots of suffering Whitetail deer along the Pennsylvania roads where we live.

The Game Commission officer told my wife "no." I couldn't shoot the deer. Lots of three-legged deer survive, the man said.

One day we noticed that the dangling leg had dropped off. By then, it was spring and there was plenty to eat. We always wondered if "Three Legs" had been hit by a car or a bullet.

People drive the highways around here as if they have sole right of passage. The deer lie along the roadside, bloated, mashed, bloody and broken. The traffic passes on the main highway in an unending stream, oblivious to the slaughter.

In the spring, the fawns die even along the country roads. The adults less frequently die at the deer trails crossing the road.