Kansas Doe Shot By Wardens...

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BigBore44

BigBore44

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https://www.google.com/amp/people.c...she-was-part-of-the-family/amp/?client=safari

So I'm really at a loss on this story. The young Doe followed the mother home. Mom nursed deer's injured leg back to health and the deer never left. The deer wasn't in a pen. It was free to come and go as it pleased. If you watch the video, you can clearly see this. But they shot it because it "could" have CWD. But it never exhibited any symptoms. And I suppose because it had been "domesticated" and the farm owners didn't have a permit to raise, treat, or breed deer. On top of that, they didn't shoot it once. They shot it 5 times after claiming they would do it humanely. What purpose did it serve to kill that Doe? Was it worth it?

Somebody please tell me why my anger over this isn't justified.
 
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BigBore44 said:
https://www.google.com/amp/people.c...she-was-part-of-the-family/amp/?client=safari

So I'm really at a loss on this story. The young Doe followed the mother home. Mom nursed deer's injured leg back to health and the deer never left. The deer wasn't in a pen. It was free to come and go as it pleased. If you watch the video, you can clearly see this. But they shot it because it "could" have CWD. But it never exhibited any symptoms. And I suppose because it had been "domesticated" and the farm owners didn't have a permit to raise, treat, or breed deer. On top of that, they didn't shoot it once. They shot it 5 times after claiming they would do it humanely. What purpose did it serve to kill that Doe? Was it worth it?

Somebody please tell me why my anger over this isn't justified.
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That is a hard story to read.... of course we are really only getting one side of it but it seems pretty harsh of the Kansas DOW to handle it that way.
 
My understanding is it's a perfectly logical Brazil type bureacracy conundrum with only one solution;
-It's illegal to keep deer as pets
-The deer was too domesticated to be released into the wild
-No zoo or sanctuary is gonna want a common-as-dirt axis doe soaking up their feed corn

Now, there's arguments for & against each of these points, which probably warranted some kind of additional scrutiny or appeal by a judge/etc before the execution, but from a law & order standpoint the deer had to be put down, so it was. Wild speculation on my part, but I suspect that here, as in practically all "cop fires gun" scenarios, there was plenty of drama & hysteria from more than just the warden which prevented cooler heads from prevailing (also more wild speculation that a woman who would let a half-wild doe into her house just may be prone to such unhelpful behavior when confronted about it)

TCB
 
barnbwt,
I'm not trying to argue about it going back into the wild. Although the deer was never penned. My question is what did KDOW gain by shooting that doe? It was hurting no one. It had no diseases (that we know of). It was cared for by someone who nursed it back to health. It became a family pet. It committed no crime. If you watched the video, it was by all accounts, a healthy deer that stayed where it felt safe. The lady didn't ask for any assistance to keep/feed the deer.

If you've ever been to Hot Springs Village in Arkansas, there are deer there that never leave. Every day they show up at the same people's houses. The people hand feed them. They bed in their yards. They give birth under their porches. They play with their cats and dogs. But none of those deer are put down by DOW. They are hunted (if that's what you want to call it). But not by wardens. And you still have to have a permit to raise/breed deer in Arkansas just like in Kansas and Oklahoma.

As I see it, all they accomplished was they taught those kids that men with badges killed their pet for no reason.

I'm not a tree hugger. I'm a hunter as much as anyone. And I'm not anti LE. My dad, brother, and best friend are cops. Several other friends that are cops. And I have a good friend that's a warden. But sometimes, discretion IS the better part of valor.
 
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I had a young Bull Moose living behind the house. It seems he was a danger to some school children. The Wyoming G&F Officers "Darted" him while I was in Arizona. They contacted my neighbor before entering my property. The officer left his name and phone number. We expect good manners from the people who work for the taxpayers. Two more Moose moved in a week later;)
 
I think there is more to this story. (?)

I have TPWD wardens drive by my property all the time and have a small herd of 6 does that pretty much live among my horses with their yearly offspring. I dont feed them nor do they jump the fence to my front yard because of the dogs.
We dont have CWD in this area, but TPWD has yet to gun them down..
 
I would guess that nobody assigned the task wanted to shoot the doe, and definitely not on video in front of crying "owners" (for lack of a better term). That was a lose lose situation for the wardens. The area wasn't conducive to shooting it with a rifle, and if they had, they would have been vilified for overkill..."do you really need a high powered rifle to kill a tame deer? "
You can't see where the first shot hit in the video so let's assume it was a lung shot. The deer would have died, but not quickly and while it's bleeding out you have hysterical people watching. The natural reaction for most people is going to be to keep shooting until it stops moving.

Whether it was hurting anyone or not, the wardens appeared to be acting within the law. I think they would have been better off to try to herd it into a stock trailer and kill it offsite(good chance it would beat itself to death in the trailer though), or possibly wait until it wandered away from the house where they could shoot it with a rifle and not have an audience. Not knowing the area, or the rest of the details on the situation it's hard to judge. The video makes them look bad, but I sure wouldn't have wanted to be in their shoes.
 
I am amazed at G&F officers unannounced and firing numerous handgun rounds. I would think they would want all family members and pets accounted for before the shooting.
It would have been more safe to "Dart" the deer? There is something wrong with this story?
 
Something a little bit similar happened here about 15 years ago. An axis deer showed up at a house and the family adopted it by feeding it. When word reached the FWC, two wardens (I think it was two) put it down. The situation, however, was different. It was an axis deer, an introduced exotic species. Just like pythons, monitor lizards, and iguanas, they are removed whenever possible.
 
The situation was mishandled from a public relations perspective. But the end result was exactly what needed to happen. Deer are wildlife and the family did the doe, nor themselves no favors by treating it as a pet. In the long run they placed it in more danger than if they had just left it alone. Next Fall that doe would have attracted bucks chasing does during the rut placing them and the family's kids in danger as they came around. During the rut bucks chasing does run into cars causing dangerous situations. Just over a year ago I had 2 does cross an interstate highway directly behind my car. One made it, the other was struck by a pickup, went airborne and through the windshield into the front seat of a car. I lost a good friend after a rutting doe hit his motorcycle. While it doesn't attract much press attention deer attack more humans every year than bear and they do sometimes kill them. Think about that and the family's kids next fall when bucks are trying to breed this doe. There was an older gentleman attacked and killed by an illegal "pet deer" a few miles from here a few years ago.

Mother nature can be cruel. There was an incident in Yellowstone just last summer where a family found an abandoned bison calf they tried to rescue. They were arrested, fined and the calf put down. In Smoky Mt National Park a few years ago some tourists thought they were doing a young fawn a favor by chasing away a bear as it tried to kill and eat the fawn. They too were arrested, fined and the fawn put down. Bears, coyote, and buzzards gotta eat too.

In a perfect "Walt Disney" world the animal could have been captured and placed in a zoo or other animal park. But space for those animals are limited.
 
jmr40 said:
The situation was mishandled from a public relations perspective. But the end result was exactly what needed to happen. Deer are wildlife and the family did the doe, nor themselves no favors by treating it as a pet. In the long run they placed it in more danger than if they had just left it alone.
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^^^This. The folks who need to step up and take the blame is the family that took in a wild animal and made it their pet. The woman, claiming that a gun "is not very humane" shows me an attitude of anti-hunting sentiment, and she would have made an stink regardless of what method the officers used. Didn't mater if the animal had Chronic Wasting or not. The minute it was domesticated and the family did not have a permit to keep a wild animal, it had to be put down.....for the safety of the kids and the community, and the safety of any offspring that the doe may have had. How would any fawns learn to live in the wild by playing in the kiddie pool and standing on the couch in the living room? What of one of the fawns would have been a buck and wanted to practice sparing with one of her young kids? Random posters on the internet know little about wildlife management, nor do they know any more than what they saw on a obviously biased video. Folks need to get real. As for getting real, this thread does not belong in hunting just because a deer was involved.
 
I'm sorry, but claiming the deer should have been shot because of POTENTIAL for another deer (buck) to come along and injure the kids? They've had that deer two years without that incident. But that's the potential. Hell my Catahoula could potentially bite my throat tonight. Guess I'll go shoot him. Sorry budddy. And does come into estrus. Bucks rut. Bucks chase does. We all know this.

The deer COULD have CWD?
I COULD have AIDS. And if it didn't matter, then why did they use it as a reason?

The deer was a free-roaming....pet.

They family also claimed they had a vet that would come euthanize the deer. I believe the family because we have a wildlife rescue about 30 miles from my house. The have to put deer down every year. These aren't humans on death row. They're deer. If a 150lb captive deer takes "X" amount of (pick the drug) to put down, give it 1.5-2 times that amount if you're really concerned. But the wardens handled it themselves.

And any claims the the family was anti-hunting is pure speculation and irrelevant. What isn't irrelevant though is the guy in the video was right. Because a deer that takes 5 rounds from a handgun to put down wasn't killed humanely. It was just killed by humans.

I understand that keeping deer as pets is a bad idea. And it's illegal without proper permits. And I'd CERTAINLY argue against having a buck as a pet. But the wardens screwed this one up BIG TIME.
 
And if the lady would not have smeared pictures of this deer all over social media nobody would have been the wiser. Just sayin'.
 
H&Hhunter said:
And if the lady would not have smeared pictures of this deer all over social media nobody would have been the wiser. Just sayin'.
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Cartainly cant disagree with you there. However that kind of equates to "if you're not caught it's not illegal". But this forum is the only social media I have. I got the story from our local (Oklahoma) news radio App.
 
BigBore44 said:
Cartainly cant disagree with you there. However that kind of equates to "if you're not caught it's not illegal". But this forum is the only social media I have. I got the story from our local (Oklahoma) news radio App.
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It doesn't kind of equate, it is 100% not caught not illegal. If you are going to do illegal stuff don't post it on social meda, DUH lady! She forced the DOW's hand with here Facebook posts. If she had kept it to herself nobody would have ever known or cared. There are crimes and then there is stupid minor stuff like this.
 
It doesn't kind of equate, it is 100% not caught not illegal. If you are going to do illegal stuff don't post it on social meda, DUH lady!
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Pretty much this; call it "legal hygiene" or "not inviting The Man into your life," but when you do something weird/uncommon/controversial --like collect or build or shoot numerous, really big, really small, really loud, or really quiet guns-- it behooves you to make sure you aren't crossing any legal boundaries unknowingly. Because laws tend to be passed against weird/uncommon/controversial behaviors, whether or not it's the right/logical thing to do.

TCB
 
The deer COULD have CWD?
I COULD have AIDS. And if it didn't matter, then why did they use it as a reason?
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Did you know wildlife officials often put down populations where highly contagious & dangerous diseases like rabies are suspected, because it cannot be tested for properly until after death? Herds of cattle are euthanized when hoof & mouth outbreaks occur. There is plenty of precedent for killing animals pre-emptively based upon a reasonable concern of contagion. This is because they are property/objects, and not human beings.

CWD is a pretty horrible thing, essentially mad-cow disease in deer, and still poorly understood as far as what causes it and how & to whom it can spread. However, from what I understand the primary pre-mortem warning sign is strange/abnormal behavior in deer (such as preferring company of humans over their own kind, and relying on them for sustenance), and the primary concern for contagion to humans or other deer is through close contact with saliva/fluids. These two things make it especially concerning for something like a half-domesticated deer, which is both in contact with wild deer that could develop the prion disease, as well as humans/livestock that it could potentially spread to with awful tragedy. The fact that symptoms take a while to develop and cannot be tested for before death leave officials with few options besides pre-emptive euthanasia. The consequence would be an entire family dead and the entire regional deer/cattle population tainted; pretty severe compared to concern over someone's illegal 'pet.'

Now all that said, there still should have been some kind of appeal or hearing for this, or at least some kind of advance notice. Were this a police matter I suspect there would have been (because the animal would have been the owner's property, outright), but because this was wildlife which unquestionably belongs to the state, they clearly felt they could skip these steps as foregone conclusions. In their eyes this was no different than destroying some pot plants in a discovered grow, but sadly there was an emotional component from the woman's perspective. I doubt any additional consideration would have yielded a different outcome, and perhaps explaining/proving to the woman why the deer's death was necessary is itself unnecessary from the state's perspective, but this incident should serve as a case study of how not to proceed in enforcing regulations outside the criminal justice system; adopting some of the same methods (probable/articulable cause, warrants, subpoena, hearings) would lend far more legitimacy to the endeavor of protecting the wilds. The whole Bundy clan affair is another example of running rough-shod over people with no claim or case just because the process allows them to, but not because it is warranted.

TCB
 
Barnbwt, You would find lots of people in the West who would disagree regarding the Bundys. Rough Shod or well shod these people invaded the rights of many honest ranchers and hunters. He was supported by the Zealots in Utah who claim our Public Lands were given to them by their Lord.
 
Yes the family went wrong by making the deer into a pet. Yes, the DOW had to do something. No, putting it down was not the only option, and NO WAY was the manner and attitude appropriate, legal or not. I think the real reason they put the animals down in many of these situations is to discourage people from doing this again. On that measure, it was probably pretty effective, but at the cost of negative publicity and anger, which they apparently don't care very much about.

My family found a whitetail doe dead from a vehicle strike (probably) and her spotted fawn nestled up next to her. We fed her fawn on goat formula, but as soon as she was big enough, she was put outside. We made sure to domesticate it as little as possible. She hung around a while and played with the family dog, but eventually, she stopped coming around.
 
Eleanor, That is a very nice report regarding wild animals. Humans tend to become over protective of orphaned creatures. It takes courage to surrender a fawn you have saved back to the wild.
We have mule deer orphans wander in from the desert. They eat our grass and water from the sprinklers. They make friends with our dog Mr. Carson. Then one day they are gone. As it should be.:)

IMG_0541.JPG
 
For starters, they broke the law. I know we've become a nation more worried about hurt feelings than anything else, including the law but the fact remains that they broke the law and the officers did not. This is probably a bit harsh but I'm pretty immune to emotional appeals regarding lawbreakers so to me, this emotional rhetoric reminds me of the popular response to police shooting criminals. The family sealed the deer's fate when they made it a pet and spread pictures of it all over the internet. Yeah, maybe they could've handled it a little better but the deer did not cooperate and hindsight is always 20/20. I'm sure shooting someone's pet is not on their list of favorite things to do.

And in the end, it was just a friggin' deer.
 
Eleanor416Rigby said:
Yes the family went wrong by making the deer into a pet. Yes, the DOW had to do something. No, putting it down was not the only option, and NO WAY was the manner and attitude appropriate, legal or not. I think the real reason they put the animals down in many of these situations is to discourage people from doing this again.
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I believe, like the Kansas DOW did, that putting the animal down was the only option. First according to the linked article, no one wanted the deer outta fear it may have been infected with CWD. A deer farm/zoo is not going to take the risk of saving one animal by putting the entire herd at risk. If one animal in the herd comes down with CWD, that entire herd is put down. There s no cure and there is no test to determine of an animal has the disease unless that animal is killed and tissue samples of the brain and lymph nodes are taken. This is why most states now do not permit interstate deer commerce and deer farms/shooting preserves will only buy deer from stock proven to be CWD free. The animal clearly could not be returned to the wild and the law states that private individuals cannot have wild animals as pets. Again, the family doomed the deer to death. They made a wild animal a pet and then bragged to the world about it. They made the deer dependent upon humans by intervening when it was a fawn and not allowing it to learn to survive by itself. They may as well have pulled the trigger themselves, but forced the Kansas DOW to do it and then damned them for doing it. Was the way the animal put down a way to discourage others from doing this again? I hope so, since far too many folks can't take a subtle hint.
 
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