A mule deer buck had to be shot with tranquilizer darts after a destructive home invasion in Colorado Springs that began with the critter crashing through a basement window.
Wyoming deer have of late refrained from such hooligan antics, said Lee Knox, a biologist with the Laramie office of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
“That’s not like anything we’ve had to respond to,” Knox told Cowboy State Daily about such close encounters with wildlife in urban areas. “I have not heard of anything like that happening in the Laramie region, or I think the rest of Wyoming.”
Caught On Video
While there haven’t been any reports of wildlife breaking into Wyoming homes, an Evanston woman was hospitalized in early October after a buck attacked her outside her home. The frightening encounter was captured on a doorbell security camera.
Wanda and Daniel Kaynor were exiting their home when they spotted a buck laying in the driveway, which didn’t meet with the approval of their small dog. The buck went after the dog, then after Wanda Kaynor when she came to the pet’s defense.
After being knocked down, she was gored repeatedly by the buck. Her husband also jumped in and began wrestling with the animal and tried to drag it away.
The woman suffered seven puncture wounds and a broken vertebrae and her husband was gored once. She was hospitalized in Salt Lake City.
Thuggish Buck In The Springs
Colorado Parks and Wildlife wardens recently posted on Twitter that they had knock out and evict the buck after it crashed through a basement window and took over a home office.
This time of year, bucks are in the rut, or mating season, which can make them overly aggressive, CPW wardens tweeted. They speculated that the buck in question might have seen its own reflection in the hapless homeowner’s window and tried charging it, thus crashing through the glass.
The wardens posted a photo of the buck relaxing in the home office like he owned the place. After the animal was darted, it tried to flee and smashed a large flower vase before succumbing to tranquilizers. It was taken outside and released, according to CWP.
Feeding Causes Many Problems
Urban deer aren’t uncommon in Wyoming, but people here don’t report too many problems with them, Knox said.
That can largely be credited to people not allowing the circumstances that can turn bucks into home-wrecking thugs, he said.
Wyomingites seem keen to the fact that does can be aggressive when guarding their fawns during the spring, and bucks can get rowdy during the fall rut.
Most conflicts result from people feeding deer, he added. That’s not only ill-advised in terms of the safety of people and pets, it’s not good for the deer.
“Anything that isn’t their native forage isn’t good for them,” he said. “It can take up to two weeks for deer’s guts to adjust to new forage. So if there’s a hard winter and people are trying to give them something they picked up at the food store, their guts won’t adjust and you can end up with a yard full of dead deer that died with full stomachs.”
