nab / CC

Bob Barker was famous for reminding The Price Is Right viewers about the importance of having companion animals spayed or neutered and keeping fur off the show, among other kind things. This week, he's speaking up for deer—in particular, two does and their fawns who live in Great Falls, Virginia.

The deer have been using an ancestral woods path (which now goes through a small development) to reach what remains of the woods, where they sleep at night. Until, that is, one neighbor got all up in arms over some flowers that the deer allegedly had a nibble on (flowers, really?) and got a "nuisance kill" permit from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) to abate the "nuisance."

The neighbor has hired a bow hunter in full regalia, who has set up a tree stand and even deployed a decoy, a lure, to attract the deer to where he can shoot them. There are easy and simple things you can do to live in harmony with wildlife, of course, but it takes a heart.

Props to the other neighbors who are fighting back hard to have the permit revoked and were able to contact Bob Barker—not by some spectacular third degree of separation miracle, by the way: One of the neighbors operated on Mr. Barker when he fell ill in Washington. Mr. Barker shot off a letter to the DGIF, which you can read here

Like many neighborhoods, this community is experiencing wildlife up close because, sadly, these wonderful, capable, now almost homeless animals are being forced to search for food, shelter, and some plain old stimulation—in part because trees are being chopped down faster than you can yell timber just to make room for more strip malls, grocery stores, and, yes, even more Wal-Marts. Jump on over to HelpingAnimals.com for handy tips on how to humanely handle wildlife.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

As of this week, hunters have something new to worry about in addition to accidentally shooting each other and embarrassing themselves in public: Not being able to find any animals. At least that's the idea behind HIDE (Hunting Is Downright Evil), an anti-hunt group based in Minnesota that has been tranquilizing deer in popular hunting sites, painting them camouflage, and re-releasing them into the wild. According to HIDE President Jamie Drysdale, the group, which has more than 60 members in Minnesota and Wisconsin, are able to camouflage up to 12 deer a week, and hundreds of infuriated hunters have already submitted letters of complaint to their state governments. Here's a picture of a newly camouflaged buck from a hunting preserve in central Minnesota:

Amazing. Anyway, HIDE, here's wishing you the best of luck confounding hunters around the country. I can't wait to see the bear pictures!