Deer Meets Tragic End On Fencing

People would be outraged if a deer wounded by a hunter played out its slow and agonizing death along a neighborhood street.

But how do you respond when the agony is caused by the neighbor’s fence?

“This is really sad,” said LeeAnn Hancock, who was out for a morning run when she discovered a white-tailed deer hanging upside down from a fancy iron fence.

While leaping over the fence, the buck had snagged a rear leg on one of the fence’s ornate spikes. The force of the fall ripped a gaping wound and drove the spike into the bone of the buck’s hock.

“It struggled, but couldn’t get off,” Hancock said.

Mike Wharton, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department enforcement officer, responded to the Hancock’s telephone call and tranquilized the deer.

Three men were required to lift the buck off the fence at Legacy Hills, an upscale development. The deer had to be destroyed.

“That deer probably had jumped over that fence before, but this time it got a little lazy,” Wharton said.

“We see more and more of these types of conflicts as people build their houses in wildlife habitat,” said department spokeswoman Madonna Luers. “Certain chain-link fences also cause this type of problem with deer, elk and moose.”

“People want to live down here with nature and then they put up a fence with spikes on it,” said Hancock, who’s family has lived on the outskirts of Spokane near the Little Spokane River since 1908. “That’s the second deer we know of that’s died on that fence.”

Game trails laced the area long before people starting building houses there, she said. The fences seem to be getting higher and more wicked.

“Now the deer have no choice but to go through developments,” she said. “The least we could do is make them wildlife friendly.”