By MELISSA BARTLETTCall me a curmudgeon for not liking Bambi, but the deer population roaming Los Alamos is NOT okay.
There are deer wandering our streets every day, leaping fences to graze on lawns and flowers, standing in front of cars in the middle of the road, and bedding down in Aunt Agatha’s herb garden.
The deer have become urbanized and are not afraid of people, cars or dogs. This loss of their natural fear will make them sitting ducks to predators like coyotes and mountain lions. It also poses dangers to humans.
On social media someone in Los Alamos recently posted a video of 3 large bucks with big racks of antlers in her yard, two of which were sparring and locking antlers with each other. She was happy she could step just outside and get this lovely footage without frightening them. However, this is the time of the year when bucks are in rut and have mating on their minds. Deer can and do attack people, and are notoriously unpredictable during rut.
Mother deer sometimes attack people who get too near their fawns. It is not safe to approach deer, especially ones that are habituated to humans. Deer also kill more Americans every year than do sharks; admittedly mostly from car accidents. Deer–vehicle collisions lead to about 200 human deaths, 10,000 injuries and 1.5 million deer caused car crashes annually. Judging from how many beeps of the horn it takes to get deer to move out of the way as I drive down my street, our local deer are planning to add to this statistic. Sadly they are not likely to survive an altercation with a Subaru.
Another reason I don’t want deer happily bedding down in my neighborhood is they carry ticks and fleas. Deer ticks, also known as blacklegged ticks, are spreading in the US. These ticks can carry Lyme disease, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Other diseases associated with deer include Q fever, chlamydiosis, leptospirosis, campylobacterosis, salmonellosis, cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis. These ticks and fleas can be spread to pets as well as humans. After living in the moist climate of Virginia and battling these parasite every year, I am appalled at the prospect of having to do that here in Los Alamos.
Finally what we love about these amazing creatures is that they are wild. Semi tame deer overrunning the town isn’t special, it’s a big problem. Feeding and encouraging deer is not helping them or the rest of us anymore than feeding bears or coyotes. Please be safe around deer, don’t encourage them through feeding, etc., and allow them to be the wild creatures they were meant to be.