Posted on 10/21/2005 12:28:32 PM PDT by radar101
Services today for victim of goring
Fairbanks Ranch neighbors peeked out windows before venturing into their yards yesterday morning. A sense of fear has pervaded this gated community since a buck gored a man three weeks ago. He died Monday. But the neighbors needn't have worried. The night before, federal trackers had shot and killed the buck believed to have attacked 73-year-old Ron Dudek. To make sure, they also killed one that looked similar.
Steve Martarano, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game, said his agency had no choice but to destroy the bucks.
"We don't relocate wild animals that are considered a problem," Martarano said. "Even after the incident, this buck continued to just hang around. It was getting bolder.
"This is a great example of the problems people can cause when they think they can get too close to wildlife." While neighbors had hoped the problem buck would be relocated to a wild area rather than be killed, they were pleased yesterday afternoon when they learned they could enter their yards without trepidation.
"I will be glad if I don't see that big one anymore," said Ann Winters, who lives across Avenida Cuatro Vientos from where the deer attacked Dudek on Sept. 25.
Dudek, who owned Saturn Electric Inc. in San Diego, had gone into his back yard to pick tomatoes when he passed a 6-foot-tall buck with three-point antlers, according to his family. The buck, which was up against the house, gored him in the face, breaking five teeth and ramming an antler down his throat.
After about two weeks in the hospital, Dudek went home. He died there Monday after a blood clot, caused by the trauma to his face, reached his lung.
A memorial service for Dudek is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today at the Church of the Nativity, 6309 El Apajo, Rancho Santa Fe. Burial will follow at 1 p.m. at El Camino Memorial Park, 5600 Carroll Canyon Road.
Tom Dudek, one of their four sons, said he was worried that the deer might attack his mother, too. At that point, no one knew the bucks had been killed.
"I'm concerned about her being in the yard," he said. "If they don't get it I will. Plenty of people have offered me a rifle."
The state contracted with federal trackers who shot one buck about 7 p.m. Wednesday and another about 8:30 p.m. Neighbors say they never heard the shots.
The bucks were believed to be part of a herd of about a dozen deer.
Martarano said the Department of Fish and Game is committed to working with the Fairbanks Ranch Association to keep this kind of problem from developing again.
He said people don't have to be handing food to the deer to entice them into the neighborhoods they are inadvertently feeding the animals when they don't fence in their tasty bushes and fruit trees.
Craig Benedetto, spokesman for the Fairbanks Ranch Association, said he was relieved that peace has been restored.
Dani Dodge: (760) 476-8242; dani.dodge@uniontrib.com
***Rancho Santa Fe is as exclusive as The Hamptons are in New York, and is about 20 miles north of San Diego, California***
The deer are mad that they were LEFT BEHIND by the Raelen Space Ship a few years ago when Applewhite and company "took off".
Actually, my deer problem arose in the last couple of years because I let the neighbors convince me that the coyote problem had gotten out of hand. As soon as the local coyote pack was exterminiated, the deer population exploded.
Correction: GIANT rats with antlers.
I agree with you. In this case it was stupidity of the guy picking tomatoes. It was said he walked past the 6' BUCK to get to the tomatoes, how stupid is that?
Actually, we've had more than our share of demented deer attack our vehicles, even to turn around for a chase.
I had a buck attack my car, a Mazda Miata. I was driving home from work, managed to see a few deer standing in the road in time to stop before I hit them. There I am waiting in my car, blowing my horn at them trying to get them to get out of the road. Next thing I know the buck turns around, looks at me, rears up and starts stamping my passenger side headlight. So I put the car in gear, gunned it and took it out. My insurance agent laughed at me, until he saw the indentations in my hood caused by the hooves.
It goes both ways. except with humans we supposed to have a little larger brain. Not in this case though, the guy was just stupid.
kill-em all... and let the butcher sort them out.
How did he make to to 73?
Hmmmmm....
Buck run amok
Nam Vet
We've got a small field we used to try to raise alfalfa on but it's surrounded on three sides by woods so it never really did all that well. Four or five years ago, we decided to plant it to premium hardwoods (mostly black cherry, black walnut and white oaks); at an 8 foot spacing, 5 acres will grow 3,200 trees. The deer treat the small trees like popsicles.
Holy deer avenger Batman!!
Uh... A big buck in rut is entirely unlike the cute cuddly little deer. They're raging fulla hormones... and they do get pretty mean. It not that they'll attack people but that they'll attack just about anything that moves.
4 foot at the shoulder could easily make for six feet at the antlers, which is probably what a reporter would do.
Geee, culling deer populations takes care of such problems. Our society is an insane, self gratifying, brainless mess. Who would have had these issues 60 years ago? Or even 40 years ago? There would have been culling as needed, no questions asked.
Venicen steaks will be served to celebrate the reopenning.
And there's the problem with our "free" nation.
What people do not realize is that deer that are in captivity kill more than any other wild animal combined.
When I rode with a local Police Officer a woman struck a deer and the impact didnt kill her but the animal thrashing to get out, he the buck slashed her throat and upper torso.
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