Deer translocation was a debacle

To The Eagle:

After reading reports on “rescuing” the Columbian white-tailed deer the other day, my neighbors and I were appalled and discussed it to great length. We felt it prudent to voice our thoughts on this, as it is our hard-earned tax dollars providing a safe haven for the cute little deer. As we live locally, we have watched the countless millions spent in an attempt (we think) to try and save the species, which is threatened. Seems to us there were more when it was farmed with cows and hayed.

A large portion of the deer refuge has been dug up and turned into duck ponds and swamps. This benefits the deer how? Is it some wetland trade-off from another place? Perhaps the focus should have been to create high areas where the deer could escape the flooding, since they fenced it all in to where they can’t reach higher ground. But enough on the land management.

This letter is to voice on the “deer rescue” that was deemed a big success. I saw pictures of the poor deer being airlifted and thought to myself “They must be scared stiff.” Turns out that is exactly what happened, but they were scared dead stiff. Twenty-one percent, yes, twenty-one percent died in this process! U.S. Fish and Wildlife considered this a success. I was speechless to the point I couldn’t write until I calmed down a day. The deer didn’t need rescuing. The dike needed repairing, which should have been the priority with the help of another government entity, the Corps of Engineers.

Bottom line, to call this a success is a terrible conclusion for killing a bunch of endangered deer. Any one of us with a job in the private sector would most certainly be fired for such incompetence.

I tried to find out how much was spent on this donated refuge, but was not able to. The amount of heavy equipment, along with several helicopter rescues over the years, used along with the staff?

Poul Tofemark

Rosburg

with Raymond Blain

Rosburg