10/23/2004: Stuck deer

[Undertoad]

A series of coincidences and confusion left me thinking it was Thursday yesterday as I woke up, and this confusion lasted until about an hour after I posted the IotD. Let's have the Friday image today then. And a very nice one, a whole series.



Welcome to New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The cops had a go at freeing this little deer with bolt cutters, but that didn't get it done, so they brought in a firefighter with a hacksaw.





And so they helped the little one to get free, and it trotted away just fine.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I should think they would have thrown a blanket or something over it's head while they were cutting it free.
I'll leave the comments about rats with antlers and running out into the street for others.

[capnhowdy]

Good job, UT. And cheers to the gestapo on this one, also. I guess sometimes they DO have better things to do than writing parking tickets. These cops were very lucky the deer was completely exhausted. When threatened. they can be HIGHLY dangerous. It's obvious this animal was totally in shock. Enough that he splashed the steps like my cousin did last night. Good thing that one cop had a helmet on.
What the hell was he looking for, anyway?
There are lots of plants people plant in their yards that attract deer like a teenager to sex. In areas near game reserves, Skidaway Island, Ga. for ex., (which was a game reserve for many years) when you purchase property you are issued a guideline as to which plants are more ecologically feasable. Sadly, most residents ignore this and resort to electric fences.
I bet it will be a while before this young deer stops by for a snack.
In parts of the southland, he'd have never gotten out alive. Venison stew, anyone?

[Griff]

Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to saw the ...

[slang]

The deer was totally unhurt? Great. Looks a little small for the freezer this year anyway.

With a broken leg or such......a blanket and a hammer would have been a better situation.

I wonder how often deer come into that neighborhood?

[wolf]

New Kensington appears to be near pittsburgh. It looks far enough out that people should have some kind of sense, though! I don't know geography on that end of the state well enough to guess how "towny" vs. "rural" that area is.

If it's more towny, I expect people react to deer like most of my suburban neighbors do ... proclaim them "cute" and illegally feed them.

So they could wander in fairly often.

[FloridaDragon]

Originally Posted by wolf

If it's more towny, I expect people react to deer like most of my suburban neighbors do ... proclaim them "cute" and illegally feed them.

Guilty....when we first relocated to CT from FL ('cause of our jobs), we fed the deer. The house was new with very few plantings so the deer did not seem to us to be a problem.....then in spring we finally met our neighbors and discovered the deer come in each fall/winter/early spring and will eat your plants to the ground. Was at a feed store buying a 50lb bag of deer chow when I noticed the guy in front of me was buying a spray-on deer repellant. I told him I hoped we were not neighbors.

We stopped feeding them and just appreciated them when they came around on their own...although as we planted more plants, we ended up resorting to some of the deer repellants ourselves....bars of deodorant soap tied to the inner growth of the plants seemed to work pretty well.

FD

[Roosta]

I just want to know what Ponch from CHiPs was doing there. Shouldn't he be on a porn set somewhere?...

[Griff]

Originally Posted by FloridaDragon

Guilty....when we first relocated to CT from FL ('cause of our jobs), we fed the deer.
FD

Thing is feeding deer in northern climes is all very Disney but in winter causes starvation.

[Clodfobble]

Thing is feeding deer in northern climes is all very Disney but in winter causes starvation.

How's that?

[Brown Thrasher]

I dont know how long the deer had been there. Maybe this happended at night after being blinded by lights. Poachers have been known to kill dear by shining lights in their eyes at night which is illegal. If it was daylight it looks like the deer would have just walked around the obstacle. But who knows, the deer may have been running from neighborhood dogs and tried to leap the obtstacle that entangled it? anyway, looks like a happy ending.

[Griff]

A couple different ways. Feeding deer causes them to bunch up near the food source. When the food is not spread over a wide area the older bigger animals chase the younger smaller ones away from the food source, but being fawns they stay close by rather than going off on their own. This also leads to over-browsing destroying the alternative food sources adjacent to the feeding area. Whitetails digestive processes change based on available food. It takes about 2 weeks for the bacteria to develop and allow the deer to digest a new food source, if access to feed is sporatic or if the available food keeps changing, they can starve with a belly full of food.

This ignores the potential for disease and predation by dogs that you'll get if you bunch deer in a suburban environment. Deer do best in winter if they don't move around much and have access to browse. Lets just let them be.

[self-mocking]thank you, Mister Know It All[/self-mocking]

[Griff]

Canadian beliefs

[FloridaDragon]

Originally Posted by Griff

Lets just let them be.

Agreed. We were simply new to the concept of wild deer in the area and did not know better...once we realized that we were probably not acting in their best interest (and certainly not the neighborhoods) we stopped. I don't think we actually attracted new deer to the area we were in however...we soon discovered we were very strategically located between two reservoirs that they continually moved between. Years after we stopped feeding them we would count up to nine in the fenced part of our yard at a time. They nibbled on plants and quickly located any bird seed that was remaining from the feeders and then wandered off.

FD

[Pi]

Well, unluckyly they had to cut a bar out of the banister (?), and that's gonna cost to replace it.