Out & About: More on rail trails… Psycho doe
OUTROUTED – The S-R’s June 26 feature on regional rail trails stopped short of a full fare.
While it mentioned the Bill Chipman Trail between Pullman and Moscow, it failed to mention the Latah Trail that extends the Chipman Trail from Moscow to beyond Troy.
“That trail is another example of a little engine that did,” said Rich Wesson of the Pullman Civic Trust. “The railbed there had been abandoned and some of the right-of-way lost. Unlike a typical rails-to-trails project, Latah County and the Latah Trail Foundation had the difficult business of negotiating purchase for some parcels from individual landowners.”
The Latah Trail and the Paradise Path within Moscow extends the Chipman Trail to create 25 miles of continuous trail.
And the possibilities don’t stop there.
The state-owned Colfax-Albion-Pullman Rail Corridor (CAP), running 19 miles between Colfax and Pullman, is slated for abandonment. Groups are scoping out the possibilities of rail banking the right of way for a potential trail through the Palouse.
Another possibility:
“A 5-mile gap separates Troy, Idaho, from the Ed Corkill Trail along the Potlatch River,” Wesson said. “If that gap is filled and the CAP trail created, we would have a 65-mile continuous trail from Colfax to Juliaetta.
“I know that visionaries in Idaho are looking at what it would take to eventually push on to Lewiston, extending the regional trail network to Asotin. The CAP is an important piece to this scheme.”
Public meetings on CAP may be scheduled this summer or fall.
Info: Pullman Civic Trust, pullmancivictrust.org.
Psycho doe dispatched
OUTTHERE – A deer that repeatedly attacked people and pets for more than a week near Lake Gillette, as reported on June 19, has been killed by a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officer.
The story was about defensive does – as well as cow elk and moose – that sometimes become aggressive in defending their immobile newborns.
But one whitetail doe that hung out near the cabins around Sherry and Gillette Lakes in Stevens County continued to be aggressive for more than a week, charging people and injuring pets.
When Washington Fish and Wildlife Department police officer Matt Konkle of Colville responded to calls, the deer charged him, too.
That was the end of that.
“Nobody knows what caused this deer to have this behavior,” said Madonna Luers, department spokeswoman. Konkle confirmed the deer was not lactating.
“Even though it wasn’t nursing and didn’t have a fawn, it could had developed a herd mentality to protect the other does and fawns in the area.
“Or maybe it was hand-raised and released in previous years by someone. There have been reports that they can become aggressive later in their life.”
“(The officer) said he hated to put her down, but it was very obvious that something was seriously wrong with her with that very unusual, escalating aggressive behavior,” said Vickie Sienknecht, who called in one of the reports about the attacking deer.