Dear Sir/Madam,

Though I do subscribe to the Times News, I end up never opening the paper and handing it over to my mother, who does enjoy the paper although she feels like I.

The Times News has very little in it except the latest drug busts, murders or highway accidents! But this weekend, I did open Saturday’s edition and eagerly read “Franklin’s Dr. Doolittle.” I thought “oh, a family friendly, happy bit of interesting Nature news!” And oh, how I love our beautiful deer! Not!

Franklin’s “Dr. Doolittle” is not Dr. Doolittle. I read of two men who feed deer, get the deer to trust them to the point of abandoning the deer’s God-given instincts to run from people to save themselves. And what is the deer’s reward for their complete trust? They are sold to “luxury ranches in the Midwest where millionaires pay for the opportunity to hunt them”? This is what I call the height of BETRAYAL. A betrayal of our wildlife … their life-preserving natural instincts given to them by their and our creator.

These deer are reared to become what is known as domesticated. Then thrown into strange ranches to be hunted? What do the deer know anymore about fleeing to save themselves? What kind of hunting do we call this? Wildlife hunting? No! Not anymore. The deer are no longer “wildlife.”

My guess is rather than running to save themselves, they will stand in front of the high-powered-rifle-pointing hunters and be shot with no real hunt at all! Or they will actually walk up to the high-powered rifle pointed at them expecting a vanilla cookie wafer!

Again, I feel in my heart that this kind of “business” is not at all charitable as it’s been superficially portrayed by the Times News, (man retires and feeds the deer!?) but betrayal. Man’s betrayal of our wildlife. Robbing the deer of its natural instincts to run for their lives, to forage for its food and to live in a herd with its family in a natural setting. Then we wonder why most of nature “runs” intuitively away from mankind. To them, we are their killers. Wafer cookies or not, our wildlife is right to run!

Regina Glauder

Jim Thorpe