I don't see anything unusual in the story, but then I don't know your laws. Here in Missouri that is the only acceptable, legal way for a landowner to get rid of too many deer. If a land owner wants to shoot deer to save crops or maybe they're eating his cattles feed the only legal way is to shoot them and leave them. Taking them home for supper would be hunting and that is illegal with out a tag, so maybe he didn't have a tag, and was just exterminating unwanted deer from his farm. Farmers here can shoot them year round in that manner, and they're such a nuisance that they are called antlered rats by many.
I personally would rather see them processed and used as human food, but then the buzzards and coyotes and everything else would miss out.