The Deer Among Us

While the Southern Illinois Deer Insurgency has been quiet so far this year, let’s not forget past victims like this one on the SIU Carbondale campus:

Amy Boren will look at the woods with wary eyes this summer.

Boren, a professor of horticulture, was one of six victims of on-campus deer attacks last summer. She said the university has not done enough to reduce the likelihood of incidents similar to the one that left her with bruises, a broken rib, and kidney problems.

"All they have done, to my knowledge, is tape off the woods and put warning signs up," she said.

Boren said a doe attacked her last May when she was walking in the woods near Campus Lake. She said the deer was standing in the middle of a path and the animal attacked her when she tried to back away.

"Every time I would get up she would try to knock me back down," she said. "I finally got a stick and poked at her and got behind a tree and she continued to go after me."

Fifteen deer attacks have been reported in the Thompson Woods and Campus Lake area since 2005.

Are the deer defeated? Or just laying low and regrouping? The summer months will hold the answer.