By SEAN WILLIAMS
Los Alamos County Councilor

A couple people have remarked that the deer photographed in a window well is a sign that we shouldn’t feed the wildlife (link). This sentiment is true, but it’s not what happened in this case. The owners of that house are good friends of ours, so I’d like to clear the air a bit.

I saw the deer around 7:30 a.m. (Thursday) as I was preparing to head out for the day. He was acting erratically, but at the time I thought it was because of the stress of having been trapped for so long. The homeowners told me the deer had been there since about 2 a.m. banging on the side of their house. They called the police, and what I’m told is, they said to call Game and Fish when they opened at 8 a.m.

Around this time—7:30 a.m., after the deer had already been trapped for over five hours—the homeowners hoped that the deer was just tired and stressed, so they offered him food and water. The buck barely ate any of it, and he didn’t regain the strength to jump out on his own. More neighbors gathered.

I called James Robinson (County Councilor) because, when it comes to wildlife, he always seems to know what to do. He called Dr. Ramsay (veterinarian) and told me they’d get there in about an hour. I had to hit the road, but I kept in touch with everyone throughout the day.

I’m told that the neighbors pulled the buck out of the window well, but that he stumbled and fell back in. Game and Fish got the deer, and they and Dr. Ramsay found that he had suffered severe head trauma. He was likely hit by a car the previous day. The deer later succumbed to his injuries.

So there are really two lessons here:

First, don’t feed the wildlife. Los Alamos is a haven for deer because not many predators are bold enough to take them down here, and there is ample food for them. Their biggest danger in Los Alamos is being hit by cars, which is made worse by the fact that they evolved to blend into wilderness environments.

Second, don’t jump to conclusions based on a single photograph. All of us—including the homeowners in this story, Game and Fish, Dr. Ramsay, James, and Jordan and me—care about the wildlife. The homeowners are completely blameless in this situation, and in fact did everything they could to help the buck. But as James said, unfortunately, you can’t save them all.