I shot a huge doe on public ground several years ago. At the time they asked those hunting on the public land to bring any deer to a testing station they had set up to test for CWD. I brought her in and they aged her at 8-9 years old. She was moving along quite well with a buck in hot pursuit when I shot her, so it didn't bother me as much as if she had been showing her age or had been in bad shape. But, I still felt a bit of remorse knowing I had taken one of the old matriarchs of the woods who probably had survived a lot trials and tribulations in her day.