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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
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| 8/29/2006 | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Mark Henry of Carmichaels strokes a young buck that wandered onto his father's property on West George Street in Carmichaels Saturday. (O-R) |
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En-deer-ing behavior
Jon Stevens
Staff writer
CARMICHAELS -- The last thing Perry Henry expected to see while doing some woodwork outside his home at 812 W. George St. Saturday was a whitetail buck, slowly nosing its way toward him.
The first thing Perry did was call his son, John, who lived about a half mile away. The second thing he did was a grab a board he was using as a joist.
"When I was on the phone with my dad, I heard him yelling for someone or something to "get back," John Henry said. "I jumped in the car and feared the worst," he said.
He said when he got out of his car and ran down to the garage he saw that his father was wielding some kind of board, trying to fend off the buck. "He was yelling for me to be careful because, as I approached, I initially thought it was a deer with chronic wasting disease." Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible neurological disease of deer and elk that produces small lesions in brains of infected animals. It is characterized by loss of body condition, behavioral abnormalities and death.
But Henry said the deer was not acting crazy at all and it didn't look sick. "It was absolutely fearless and never once gave the impression he was going to take off even as I approached at a jog," he said. "You have to understand, this thing came right out of the open woods where my dad bowhunts every year," he said.
John Henry said he was wearing a bright orange T-shirt and the deer immediately focused his attention on him. "To keep from being gored, I instinctively grabbed the bases of his horns as he came toward me and--I tried to maintain some distance, while at the same time thinking, 'this ain't good.' After I grabbed his horns, the deer became really agitated and got very aggressive with me, so I let him go."
Henry said as the buck came back to him, he pushed its nose down with his open hand and stepped from side-to-side to keep some distance. "Each time I pushed the deer's nose down, it became less and less aggressive, but it still wanted to approach me," he said. "So I nervously let it come right up to me and told my Dad that if it got the better of me he had better tackle it or crack it with the board."
--When the deer did come up to him, it started licking his hand. "I couldn't believe it," Henry said. Soon, when Henry's brother, Mark, and others arrived, the deer was busy licking his hand and arm while he was petting his neck and rubbing him behind his ears like a dog.
"This deer was acting like a puppy -- literally. No aggression whatsoever as long as we didn't mess with its horns," Henry said.
About 20 people showed up to see it, and the deer never tried to run away. At one point, it jumped up on Henry's shoulder. "I got a little nervous thinking it was going to pound me with its hooves, but it didn't. All it wanted was to lean on my shoulder while it tried to lick my face and head."
Finally, the Henrys and their friends concluded someone had been feeding the young buck. "We grabbed some crabapples and hand-fed it, and we all took turns taking pictures with it," he said.
Henry said last year, a doe was killed near his dad's house and the two fawns hung around the neighborhood for a long time. "We are assuming someone started feeding them to the point that they became domesticated and fearless of people," he said.
Henry said after about an hour, his wife and two children walked into the nearby woods and the buck followed. "Then it just meandered off. It was a pretty neat experience," he said.
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