While biking on a sidewalk by a major road, I saw a dead deer. I was so close I had to careful manuever around it on foot to avoid running it over. Never have I been that close to a dead deer before and the experience left me close to tears. This animal who used to be a beautiful living creature was now left to rot on a sidewalk adjoining a busy major road where not even scavengers could safetly get to it. Whenever the body is collected, it will likely go to a landfill where the deer's body will be mixed in with garbage as though it were never alive to begin with.

It is uncomfortable and heartbreaking to think of these things. It is hard to accept that we humans with our cars and roadways play a roll in wild life death. Everytime I raise the morality prickling question of why we think it's fine to leave deer by the side of the road but would never leave a human body by the side of the road, I'm told the two are different. Obviously a deer and a human are different but it puzzles me why one living creature is deemed more worthy of respect than the other.

I'm not saying we need to carry a deer away on a stretcher, but we do need to do better. It is unacceptable to leave them on the side of the road like trash. We need to recognize that we are murdering a beautiful and innocent animal. We are trespassing on land they used to inhabit and now are selfishly forcing them to adapt for our gain. It's hard to think like this and deal with the guilt and shame of being a part of a system that takes life from innocent creatures but we need to feel this discomfort to enact change.