Molalla Pioneer

Snowball, a six-year-old doe and her yearling son Bucky are currently living at an licensed wildlife facility while attorneys negotiate over their fate.

Snowball has a deformity in her legs and unusual white coloring that make her an unlikely candidate for survival in the wild. Had house painter Jim Filipetti not picked her up from the side of the road and taken her home, wildlife experts say that natural selection would have destined the doe for a short life.

Bucky appears a more likely prospect for release, according to ODFW wildlife veterinarian Dr. Peregrine Wolff. The yearling buck is physically healthy and more wary of humans than his mother. Caretakers are trying to encourage that trait by limiting his contact with humans and allowing him to forage for food as he would in the wild.

Wolff said the ODFW is waiting for blood tests to return, showing whether Bucky is in fact Snowball’s son as the deer’s former owners have stated. The results are expected to return in about two weeks.

She declined to comment as to whether the possibility of passing on genes for a deformity will play into the agency’s decision on releasing Bucky into the wild. Realistically, it will be at least a month before the buck could be released, Wolff said.

Meanwhile, an attorney representing the deer’s former caretakers is in negotiations with the ODFW, in hopes of having both of the animals returned to the family.

Geordie Duckler of the Animal Law Practice firm in Portland said no immediate end to the wrangling is in sight.

“It’s kind of a David and Goliath situation,” he said. “Because there’s just me and (the family) and then there’s state … which has resources way beyond mine, and I know already that they’ve spent an enormous amount of money.”

The family did receive some welcome news yesterday, when the Clackamas County District Attorney’s office informed Duckler that no charges will be pressed against Filipetti or his partner Francesca Mantei for keeping the deer in captivity. Under Oregon law, they could have been charged with a Class A misdemeanor carrying a sentence of up to one year in jail and a $6,250 fine.

Duckler also takes partial credit for the ODFW’s decision not to euthanize the deer, which the agency announced publicly last week.

The day that the ODFW came to confiscate the deer, Duckler called the agency and informed them that he would get a restraining order if they were planning to have the animals killed.

“I think part of it was me threatening to get a restraining order, and the rest of it was that it would have been a public relations nightmare if they had euthanized the deer,” Duckler said.

ODFW spokesperson Michelle Dennehy had no estimate of how many deer the agency has euthanized in the past year but said that it is a rare measure. The agency may choose to euthanize in animal in cases of severe injuries or sickness, to stop the spread of disease, or in cases where the deer is considered incapable of surviving in the wild and is habituated or aggressive towards humans.

Like Duckler, Dennehy had no estimate of when a settlement might be reached.

The ODFW had previously offered to allow Snowball to remain on Filipetti’s property as long as she was not kept in an enclosure. But the family refused to agree, citing concerns that if the doe was allowed to roam loose, lacking the ability to run or jump, she would likely be killed by neighborhood dogs or other predators.

The state of Oregon issues only 24 permits at a time for private citizens to keep cervids, or horned animals in the deer family. Sixteen of those permits are reserved for commercial elk farmers, like Molalla’s Rosse Posse Acres. Of the other eight permit holders, some were grandfathered in because they owned elk or deer before the current rules were instated in 1993. The others are zoos or research and educational facilities.

And currently, all of the available permits are taken.

Brenda Ross, co-owner of the Rosse Posse Acres, said she and her husband have contacted the ODFW offered to take the deer if they cannot be returned to the family.

As soon as Snowball’s story hit the news, the elk farm began receiving a barrage of phone calls from concerned citizens asking the farmers to do something about the deer’s plight.

Ross said she has sympathy for both Filipetti and the ODFW.

“I bottle raised (an elk calf) for the first time this year, and you cannot help but fall in love with a bottle raised baby,” she said.

At the same time, Ross said, “I would really hate to be in the ODFW’s shoes right now. I really think the they have got some tough decisions to make, and their hands are tied by laws.”

Dennehy confirmed that the ODFW has had preliminary discussions with Rosse Posse and other licensed facilities, but with legal negotiations ongoing, no decision has been made.

Mantei, who raised the two deer along with Filipetti, said the couple is waiting for the outcome of the case while trying to finish a painting job near Bend that was interrupted when the commotion started last week.

“We are wracking up a huge, huge legal bill, and with all the media attention we have been unable to work,” she said. “It’s been very, very crazy.”

Mantei noted that the volume of phone calls has been overwhelming and asked that concerned citizens send their questions and comments to snowballandbucky@yahoo.com.

The family has also set up a “Snowball Donations” fund at Wells Fargo.