Oh deer

Did something last night that I hadn't done in a while. I worked a wreck involving one car and a deer. Fairly simple to reconstruct - car coming down a hill, deer crossing the road, and a very bad ending for the deer courtesy of the car's front end. Fairly simple on my end as well, just check on the driver, call for a tow truck as needed (not in this case), mark the deer for the streets truck to pick up, scribble some notes, and then it's off to the next one.

In any crash, officers have to estimate damage amounts. This is half guesstimation and half simple knowledge of cars and construction. A fence, or bumper, or door panel...all fairly straight forward to verify. When in doubt, call an autobody shop, or browse a Blue Book or hardware catalog.

What always struck me is that we're required to assign monetary value and ownership to deer. At the risk of getting overly philosophical, who really owns a deer? Anyone? Personally I have my opinions, but I don't think DMV would take kindly to me writing "God" on a FR300. Instead, we mark the owner as "Virginia Departmant of Game and Inland Fisheries", aka the state wild game department with a cost of $800.

$800?

Where'd they get that?

In the legal sense, keeping the monetary value associated to something breathing (versus a fencepost) under $1000 also keeps it misdemeanor level and avoiding further hairsplitting. I can almost picture the lawyers splitting the animal kinggdom up between felony level animals and misdemeanor animals. As a hunter, I have no desire whatever to get into any sort of animal rights argument with anyone. You think what you want to, I'll think what I want to, and we can still get along just fine.

$800? That seems so....arbitrary.

I'll have to work that one out a little.