I can think of something that's far, far worse than deer starving in winter -- a perfectly healthy animal dying in less than 24 hours from a violent illness, the kind of illness brought on because we simply toss a bag of deer feed out into our backyard while under the dangerous impression that we're doing "the right thing."

There are two diseases most closely associated with people feeding deer, and they have the complicated and not-easy-to-pronounce names of "acidosis" and "enterotoxemia."

In both cases, they result of a significant shift in an individual deer's eating habits.

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal or Morning Sentinel.