State officials compromise with family in case of captive deer
0 Comments Published by Pioneer Staff on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 2:20 PM.
By Abby Sewell
Molalla Pioneer
It started one morning almost six years ago, when Jim Filipetti was driving his kids to the school bus stop and something in the bushes caught his eye.
"He called and said, 'Honey, I saw a little white deer,'" said Filipetti's longtime girlfriend, Francesca Mantei. "I said, 'Honey, you're a South Florida city boy. We don't have little white deer around here.'"
But a few days later, the deer was still there; and not only was it little and white, it had two deformed hind legs.
That was how the family ended up with Snowball, an albino blacktail doe, living in a pen on their five-acre property in the Meadowbrook area, north of Molalla. They took the deer to the veterinarian in Woodburn and had casts put on her legs. For six months she lived inside the house with the family before she was strong enough to move to an outdoor pen, and during that time, Filipetti drove her to the vet's office in Woodburn every week.
"She's a member of the family," Mantei said. "She lived in my house for six months. We've had Snowball longer than my youngest daughter."
That's a problem, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which began investigating the situation after an anonymous caller phoned in a complaint to the Oregon State Police in March. Oregon law makes it a crime to remove wildlife from the wild without a permit. The Class A misdemeanor carries a potential sentence of one year in jail and a $6,250 fine.
After a previous investigative visit in the spring, OSP officers and ODFW officials showed up at Mantei's door this morning and told her they were there to take Snowball and the doe's one-year-old son, Bucky.
Bucky, an apparently healthy young animal, was the unintended product of an unexpected mating between the doe and a blind buck that lived in the same pen for a short period of time after being taken from the wild by a friend of the family.
The five-acre property holds somewhat of a little menagerie, including a llama, a potbellied pig, turkeys, ducks and a Shetland pony.
John Bring, who works as a caretaker on the property six days a week, said Filipetti is unable to refuse an animal in need.
"He's the biggest-hearted man," Bring said. "He had a friend with a bunch of llamas, and there was one that his kid really liked. After a while, he was going to butcher the llamas, and his kid was so upset about the one llama that Jim offered to take it."
So when Mantei called her husband at work and told him the police wanted to take Snowball away, he got on the phone and ordered them off the property. While some of the officers went to get a warrant to take the deer, others set up for a long wait at the end of the driveway.
Meanwhile, Mantei got on the phone and called every lawyer, state agency contact and wildlife rehabilitation center she could think of.
"We're pretty much afraid that once they take Snowball, they'll put her down," Mantei. "Bucky would do okay on his own, Bucky can be released in the wild. But Snowball won't."
But when the ODF officials returned several hours later, they came to offer a compromise.
Bucky would have to leave the property, to be evaluated and potentially released into the wild. Snowball could stay and be released on site. She can't be enclosed or fenced in, but if she chooses to, she can stay on the property where she has lived all her life.
Although still apprehensive about the possibility of the deer leaving the property only to become prey to dogs, coyotes or cougars, Mantei said the resolution was better than she had expected.
"I thought we were going to lose a part of us," she said. "For them to make this decision -- we'll jump through whatever hoop they put in our direction."
For Bucky, the prospects are mixed, according to ODFW district wildlife biologist Don VandeBergh. Although the young buck is apparently healthy and is more wary of humans than his mother, he will still be at a disadvantage compared to deer raised in the wild, he said.
"A lot of it is that people pick (animals) up and don't know their dietary needs," he said. "They don't have the basic instincts that their parents would show them."
In 2006, state-licenses wildlife rehabilitation specialists reported seeing 168 animals that had been held in captivity. Of these, 31 died in captivity.
"Our key point is, if people find an animal, please contact us or the state police so it can go to a licensed rehabilitation facility," VandeBergh said. "These situations are tough for the department and really obviously traumatic for the family."
Molalla Pioneer
It started one morning almost six years ago, when Jim Filipetti was driving his kids to the school bus stop and something in the bushes caught his eye.
"He called and said, 'Honey, I saw a little white deer,'" said Filipetti's longtime girlfriend, Francesca Mantei. "I said, 'Honey, you're a South Florida city boy. We don't have little white deer around here.'"
But a few days later, the deer was still there; and not only was it little and white, it had two deformed hind legs.
That was how the family ended up with Snowball, an albino blacktail doe, living in a pen on their five-acre property in the Meadowbrook area, north of Molalla. They took the deer to the veterinarian in Woodburn and had casts put on her legs. For six months she lived inside the house with the family before she was strong enough to move to an outdoor pen, and during that time, Filipetti drove her to the vet's office in Woodburn every week.
"She's a member of the family," Mantei said. "She lived in my house for six months. We've had Snowball longer than my youngest daughter."
That's a problem, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which began investigating the situation after an anonymous caller phoned in a complaint to the Oregon State Police in March. Oregon law makes it a crime to remove wildlife from the wild without a permit. The Class A misdemeanor carries a potential sentence of one year in jail and a $6,250 fine.
After a previous investigative visit in the spring, OSP officers and ODFW officials showed up at Mantei's door this morning and told her they were there to take Snowball and the doe's one-year-old son, Bucky.
Bucky, an apparently healthy young animal, was the unintended product of an unexpected mating between the doe and a blind buck that lived in the same pen for a short period of time after being taken from the wild by a friend of the family.
The five-acre property holds somewhat of a little menagerie, including a llama, a potbellied pig, turkeys, ducks and a Shetland pony.
John Bring, who works as a caretaker on the property six days a week, said Filipetti is unable to refuse an animal in need.
"He's the biggest-hearted man," Bring said. "He had a friend with a bunch of llamas, and there was one that his kid really liked. After a while, he was going to butcher the llamas, and his kid was so upset about the one llama that Jim offered to take it."
So when Mantei called her husband at work and told him the police wanted to take Snowball away, he got on the phone and ordered them off the property. While some of the officers went to get a warrant to take the deer, others set up for a long wait at the end of the driveway.
Meanwhile, Mantei got on the phone and called every lawyer, state agency contact and wildlife rehabilitation center she could think of.
"We're pretty much afraid that once they take Snowball, they'll put her down," Mantei. "Bucky would do okay on his own, Bucky can be released in the wild. But Snowball won't."
But when the ODF officials returned several hours later, they came to offer a compromise.
Bucky would have to leave the property, to be evaluated and potentially released into the wild. Snowball could stay and be released on site. She can't be enclosed or fenced in, but if she chooses to, she can stay on the property where she has lived all her life.
Although still apprehensive about the possibility of the deer leaving the property only to become prey to dogs, coyotes or cougars, Mantei said the resolution was better than she had expected.
"I thought we were going to lose a part of us," she said. "For them to make this decision -- we'll jump through whatever hoop they put in our direction."
For Bucky, the prospects are mixed, according to ODFW district wildlife biologist Don VandeBergh. Although the young buck is apparently healthy and is more wary of humans than his mother, he will still be at a disadvantage compared to deer raised in the wild, he said.
"A lot of it is that people pick (animals) up and don't know their dietary needs," he said. "They don't have the basic instincts that their parents would show them."
In 2006, state-licenses wildlife rehabilitation specialists reported seeing 168 animals that had been held in captivity. Of these, 31 died in captivity.
"Our key point is, if people find an animal, please contact us or the state police so it can go to a licensed rehabilitation facility," VandeBergh said. "These situations are tough for the department and really obviously traumatic for the family."
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