>>39475432There's nothing inherently wrong with giving them compassion, but that only treats the symptoms of the issue, not the root cause.
When man settled the frontier, they killed off or chased away all the predators that would have kept the deer population in check naturally. When farmers plant their fields, it creates an artificial population boom that hurts the entire ecosystem--not just deer--more than regulated hunting ever could. When winter comes and the farm fields wither, that massive deer population denies a lot of resources to a lot of other species. It's not just the deer starving when the snow falls.
Like it or not, we've assumed the mantle of responsibility by virtue of being the dominant species, and that means we have to learn to fix our mistake of letting the population grow to unsustainable numbers. And unfortunately, that means we can't afford to infantilize or pity these creatures; we have to be cruel to be kind.
It's a rough truth, but undeniable. Either the deer get culled, or the entire natural ecosystem dies with them.