It was 5:30 a.m. when Colorado Parks and Wildlife Officer Luke Clancy got the call from a resident on the north side of Durango, near Miller Middle School, about a buck thrashing in the backyard.
Earlier that morning, the male mule deer had gotten its large set of antlers caught in a metal cable that had been strung across the unfenced yard as a dog run.
“It was well tangled up,” Clancy said. “It had destroyed a lot of the backyard, been doing flips around and tore out some stumps, tore the post down on one side of the cable.”
Every year, antlered wildlife – primarily mule deer and elk – are caught in fences, hammocks, volleyball nets, string lights and other snag hazards.
When Clancy arrived to the scene on Feb. 6, he shot the deer with a tranquilizer dart.
The animal, exhausted from trying to escape the cable for over an hour, collapsed sedated within five minutes. It took another five minutes for Clancy to unravel the cable, do a physical exam and tag the animal before administering a reversal drug.
“It’s a constant struggle,” he said of warning the public to remove snag hazards. “... They’re so comfortable around everything that we put up that it’s a common occurrence.”
This incident ended happily – but not all of them do. Stressed antlered ungulates can break their neck as they writhe to try to escape restraints, or can suffocate.
And snag hazards are just one of several threats that humans can pose to wildlife.
In January, CPW put out a similar warning about metal fences that can entrap yearling deer. Clancy said he has also noticed an increase in humans feeding deer in the Durango area.
By midwinter, deer can start to look hungry, prompting humans to step in. He said people sometimes leave dog food, bird seed or other snacks out for the animals.
“Unfortunately, that comes from a desire to help animals but it comes from people not understanding animals,” Clancy said. “They existed for hundreds of thousands of years without us and they can do just fine without us feeding them through the winter.”
Deer that become accustomed to humans feeding them become pushy or even aggressive, he warned, adding that its creates a bad situation for deer and for people.
We got a report of this buck with its antlers tangled in the steel cable of the dog run, and Officer Clancy quickly responded. To get close to the deer to free it from the entanglement, he first had to dart the deer and tranquilize it. The reporting party shared this video. pic.twitter.com/mFvaQGNeUC
— CPW SW Region (@CPW_SW) February 15, 2024
This year’s relatively mild winter has meant that deer are able to survive the large storms, and instead migrate toward the more moderate temperatures in New Mexico. But the north-south migration means crossing U.S. Highway 160, which runs east-west.
Clancy said he expects another “big kill” as the deer start to move north once again when spring arrives.
If deer are killed by traffic, human scavengers can harvest the meat so long as they obtain a permit from a CPW office. But, Clancy warns, keep an eye out for ear tags. Blue ear tags, the kind he attached to the deer involved in the Feb. 6 incident, have a date before which the animal’s meat should not be consumed, to ensure the drugs have fully worked their way out of the deer’s system.
If residents do spot a tangled deer, Clancy warns against approaching the animal. Sharp antlers paired with a powerful, stressed deer can lead to a bad outcome.
“I would never advise someone to go out and try to cut a deer out on their own,” he said.
Instead, report the animal to the on-call wildlife officer via Colorado State Patrol, at (303) 239-4501 or by calling 911.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
