Injured deer euthanized

By DEVIN HEILMAN

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — It was a sad but inevitable end for the mama deer with two broken hind legs.

"She was in really bad shape," Phil Cooper, a wildlife conservation educator with Idaho Fish and Game, said Wednesday. "She was put down."

Coeur d'Alene resident Sandra Swank, whose yard the doe and her fawn have been staying in all week, said Fish and Game workers came to her home early Wednesday to take care of the doe with a lethal dose of tranquilizer. They also tried to capture the fawn to be sent to rehabilitation.

The fawn evaded Fish and Game officials, so it was still on Swank's property when she talked to The Press Wednesday afternoon.

"Right now she's in my backyard. She ran away before they could even try to do it," Swank said. "They said they feel she will be OK on her own. It's not like she's a baby and still needs her mom's milk."

"We can't capture it, so at this point we can't do anything else," Cooper said. "It is eating solid food. It has a reasonable chance on its own."

Swank said she’s relieved Fish and Game was able to end the doe's suffering. Swank has had a heavy heart all week; she believes the doe was hit by a car before settling in her yard. She said it was somewhat comforting to hear from one of the Fish and Game officials that deer don't experience pain like humans do.

"I have to believe that because I saw her, and she wasn't whining, she wasn't crying," Swank said. "She knew things were different, that her legs hurt. She was just licking her legs like a dog would lick its wounds."

Cooper said Fish and Game frequently receives calls about injured deer, but euthanization is a last resort.

"If an animal is up and moving, we generally leave it alone because it's amazing how animals adapt," he said. "If we shoot it and put it down, it's definitely dead. We like to give it a chance if we can."