A processed deer including tag, skinning, and butchering ends with 70lbs and costs about $300. 70lbs of processed beef costs $800-900. You can cut those prices in half if you butcher the deer yourself or buy a primal beef and butcher that yourself.
We wiped out their natural predators to protect livestock and pets. Leaving deer population unchecked leads to crop destruction(incliding soy and lentils) as well as deer suffering from famine.
Cows are absolutely an environmental nightmare and factory farmed in an abhorrent manner. Deer that are part of the natural ecosystem and lived nice and mostly healthy natural lives free of steroids and antibiotics are not abused ecological nightmares.
Lentils require many acres of farmland that ruin the local ecology, far more if you grow them without pesticides and fertilizers that cause their own ecological disasters including the loss of insect populations and algae or plankton blooms that release carbon and kill ocean and river ecology. Can’t harvest all of those lentils without 3rd world near slave labor or carbon emitting farm equipment. Harvesting pesticides, GMO, and fertilizer free crops without carbon emitting machinery by using fair wage paid people would increase the cost of the end product to far exceed viability.
Hunting is cheaper and more ethical than factory farms and veganism. Advocate insect farming as an ethical, sustainable, and environmental food source instead of ruining the environment with misguided vegan or vegitarianism.