Unusual Pet: Filipetti with Snowball in a family photo from several years ago
Posted on 09/21/2007 8:31:50 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Bambi vs. the Bureaucrats
Six years ago, an Oregon man rescued a fawn and raised her as a family pet. So when the state seized the deer, with a threat of euthanasia, all hell broke loose.
By Winston Ross
Sept. 19, 2007 - Had he been a hunter, and had the mottled white doe that tumbled down a hill into his rural Oregon driveway six years ago been an adult, Jim Filipetti could have ponied up $19, applied for a deer tag and gunned the animal down. He could have butchered the deer the state now knows as "Snowball," mounted her head on the wall and moved on with his life.
But Filipetti chose to raise the injured fawn as a pet, spending thousands of dollars on veterinarian bills to treat her deformed hooves, installing strips of carpet throughout his house so she wouldn't slip on the hardwood floors, and feeding her a steady diet of sweetpeas, tomatoes and green beans—"the best that Safeway had to offer," he says. After 12 months, the house painter moved her to a pen outside his home in Molalla, Ore., but she was still a member of the family. "It was like having a dog around the house," Filipetti says.
Filipetti uses the past tense because his beloved Snowball has been seized by the state, which was considering euthanizing her. The story has outraged local residents and animal-rights advocates.
What’s telling is that the neighbors didn't complain. To the contrary, they took to Snowball, stopping by to feed the tame creature on a regular basis. "Everybody's got a set of animals somewhere," says Geordie Duckler, an attorney with the Animal Law Practice, a Portland specialty law firm that handles livestock disputes, biting incidents and claims against veterinarians. "It's rural Oregon."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Unusual Pet: Filipetti with Snowball in a family photo from several years ago
Virginia Dare?
Rules against raising wildlife are there for good reason, but this is stupid. Why not just put the deer in a petting zoo, and be done with it?
put the deer in a petting zoo, and be done with it?
Not a bad idea.
I'm with the second camp. It may not generally be a good idea to raise wild animals as pets, but there are exceptions to every rule. Government laws are not good at dealing with exceptions, but that shouldn't be the pet owner's problem. Return the deer.
What good reason?
We keep being told that man is the problem with species going extinct. But that is not true. We have no shortage of pigs, cows, dogs, cats, goats, hamsters, etc. All these animals are close to man and are cared for by man. The animals that are in danger of extinction are the animals that man is forbidden by the state from nurturing.
Bureaucrats act like souless ghouls. They operate strictly “by the book” and act incapable of independent thought, good judgement or compassion. They are petty little dictators exercising their only lifetime opportunity to flaunt authoritative power over someone else. How important they are! It isn’t hard to imagine why the Nazi or Communist regimes were so dangerous — the leaders would have been ineffective without legions of these subservient ghouls to carry out their bidding. /RANT
Mostly having to do with humane treatment, but also having to do with elementary safety.
1. It's generally bad for the health of the animal in question. Not this time, perhaps, but generally, because most people don't know how to take care of the needs of a wild animal.
2. Wild animals are ... well, they're wild, and thus can be unpredictable. For some species, there's real danger in having wild animals living among humans. Even for deer (older than fawns), they could cause injury.
3. Possibility of disease: if the animal escapes back into the wild, it could take diseases with it. Similarly, bringing a wild animal in among domesticated animals could bring disease into the domesticated population. As an example, brucellosis could be spread in either direction.
There are more examples, but I think you get the point.
Let the poor "doe man raised from fawn" live! Think of the scientific research benefits.
Has there every been a doe man before? Don't kill him because he's different! He was raised from a fawn and they want to kill him?
Don't hate, appreciate!
Where’s the “leave Bambi alone” YouTube video?
I’m waiting...
*tapping feet*
LOL. Too true.
Return Snowball and leave this man and his pet alone. Free Snowball!
“There are more examples, but I think you get the point.
I get the point. Rights should be limited under the auspices of the ever-bureaucratic “just in case” scenario. Gun-grabbers like that one, too. I’d be interested to see some data where citizens keeping deer actually ever harmed anything.
I grew up down the street from a man who kept horses, cows, goats and deer without incident or complication so to me this story is another attack on individual rights.
Not a flame, I just don’t agree with you.
Shhhh, don't tell anyone but I think this guy has his own show on MSNBC called "Countdown" now...
Good idea, but better yet lets euthanize the stupid person who brought up this moronic idea.
Disease control alone justifies rules against keeping wild animals.
Why can’t the state just give them a permit to continue to keep those particular deer? Too easy, too just.
Please expound on how any of your points cannot be applied to domesticated animals, please.
For example, feral cats fit all of your points, but they can be successfully domesticated. If cats were left in the wild and prohibited access to human, many would die of preventable disease. And yes, a feral cat is a very wild animal and cannot be domesticated successful, but offspring can easily be turned around while small. Disease of cats can for the most part be controlled with modern medicine.
I also find it insulting that you think that man is too dumb to take care of the health issues.
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