In my previous home, we'd come home late at night, and the group of deer that was bedded down in the front yard looked at us, but stayed put as we walked past them into the house.

One year the town herd became more than a nuisance so the council asked a local hunter to thin out the herd, targeting first any injured ones and ones that were weak from an illness. The deer were threatening kids at school, and it's not good for wildlife to get dependent on the things they grazed on in town, and to become too used to people. The herd seemed always to swell in numbers the first day of hunting season.

The same was true with coyotes and cougars. They attacked some horses which subsequently had to be put down, and scaring the kids at school. But the cougars did help thin the deer population.

Jim