They are thinning the herd in Lower Merion.

They want to do the same in Valley Forge National Historical Park.

And now Rose Valley is looking to do the same.

Their target is deer. There are too many of them. And they are marauding over the landscape, destroying vegetation and upsetting the environmental balance.

Personally, I have a little more visceral response to deer.

It stems from my seemingly daily game of early-morning dodge-ball with the critters as I drive to work.

The latest came this week. Of course, I encountered this animal not on a straight stretch of dry road. Instead I was coming up over a hill, on a rainy morning, when there it was, standing right in the middle of the road.

I swerved to avoid it, and luckily it never moved.

I’m not talking Bambi here. I’m talking a full-grown buck, with a magnificent rack. This thing could have been the spokesman for the Hartford Insurance Co.

It wasn’t my first close encounter. No doubt it will not be the last.

It’s not the deer’s fault. I know we have over-developed. I don’t especially care. All I know is that one of these mornings my luck is going to run out.

I say thin the herd. Now.