Marin County man arrested in fatal shooting of doe, fawn caught eating his yard plants

Press Democrat ^ | 8 Sept 2017

[rey]

TIBURON — A resident of an exclusive San Francisco Bay neighborhood is the target of online outrage and may face criminal charges for shooting to death a doe and its fawn that were eating newly installed landscaping.

Tiburon police arrested Mark Dickinson, 54, shortly after 5 a.m. on Sept. 2. Officers were responding to a report of a suspicious person when they found two severely injured deer in the street near Dickinson's bay-view home. The animals died a short time later.

Officers arrested Dickinson after they determined he shot the deer several times with a high-powered pellet gun with scope, laser and flashlight attachment, according to chief Michael Cronin.

Cronin said Dickinson told officers he meant to scare away the deer, which were eating decorative plants. Dickinson was booked and released from jail Sept. 2.

Dickinson's lawyer Charles Dresow said the killing was an accident.

"My client did not intend to harm the animals," Dresow said in an email. "The public outrage related to these allegations is driven by the inflammatory claims of the Tiburon Police Department which haven't been proven in Court.

[Right Wing Assault]

Deer are locally overpopulated and suppress each young forest growth and the population of a wide array of other species.

A relative works for a local park district that manages about 25,000 acres. They deer-proof fenced in a section of the woods and watched it to see what happened.

The un-fenced woods have essentially no plant life other than large trees. Just dirt and erosion. Yes, few small animals and birds compared to the fenced area. But too many people don't want controlled hunts because the deer are so cute or beautiful. In quantity, they are destructive pests, too. Same goes for squirrels and chipmunks.

[Right Wing Assault]

And rabbits and ground hogs. I did learn that peeing into a ground hog burrow will keep them away.

[Clutch Martin]

This guy’s a dummy. They have proximity sprinkler heads out there that discharge when deer and squirrels and what have you get close to your garden or your plants. They work great as soon as they go off they the animals split - problem solved. And you can save the deer for hunting season later.