Showing results by author "Erika Howsare" in All Categories

Deer have been an important part of the world that humans occupy for millennia. They're one of the only large animals that can thrive in our presence. In the twenty-first century, our relationship is full of contradictions: We hunt and protect them, we cull them from suburbs while making them an icon of wilderness, we see them both as victims and as pests. But there is no doubt that we have a connection to deer: in mythology and story, in ecosystems biological and digital, in cities and in forests.

If You See a Deer is a mini-series companion podcast to Erika Howsare’s book, The Age of Deer (out from Catapult Books in January 2024). Along with Tyler J. Carter, a writer and academic, Erika explores questions about where nature and culture collide—mysteries of ecology and history that spring from our relationship with deer, a very familiar, yet wild, animal. Over four episodes, they talk to scientists, hunters, artists, taxidermists, and people who just like to watch deer in their yards, and ponder what it means for humans in our time to attempt to connect with wild animals.