This is absolutely mind-boggling.
Wisconsin wildlife officials are defending their decision to remove a fawn from a no-kill shelter and euthanize it, saying state law requires such action to prevent the spread of disease.
The fawn, named Giggles, was brought to the Saint Francis Society shelter near the state line by an Illinois family who believed the animal had lost its mother.
Shelter workers told WISN-TV that the fawn had been there about two weeks when armed Department of Natural Resources agents showed up with a search warrant and took the animal. The DNR began investigating after receiving two anonymous calls about the deer.
As if the situation described above wasn’t excessive enough, another report indicates that a DNR game warden actually used a plane to perform surveillance of the shelter prior to the raid of the shelter by armed agents.
The warden drafted an affidavit for the search warrant, complete with aerial photos in which he described getting himself into a position where he was able to see the fawn going in and out of the barn.
So here’s my question to you all: what would be a fitting name for Scott Walker’s “new and improved” DNR?
As little respect as I have for Scott Walker and Cathy Stepp, I really can’t get too upset with this. The Saint Francis Society is a dog and cat shelter. It is not a wildlife rehab center. While the DNR was pretty ham handed and terribly insensitive in their response, the fawn was being kept without a permit. It was potentially a carrier of CWD. Without specific knowledge of deer and appropriate food, a fawn will quickly develop scours.
Too often, well meaning folks will “rescue” fawns that have no need for rescuing. Does often leave their fawns for hours at a time. Fawns lie still and wait for mother’s return.
Leave fawns alone if you see them in the wild. Call a wildlife rescue organization. Don’t move the fawn unless you have clear knowledge that it’s mother is dead.
Right…so aerial surveillance, 13 heavily armed agents, corralling workers, confiscating their cell phones etc. all over one baby fawn isn’t upsetting to you?
Ham handed, insensitive and a bit over the top is how I feel about DNR’s response. The shelter should not have taken in the fawn. Had the Illinois people not “rescued” it, none of this would have happened.
How is all of this any different from what the cops do to people every day all over the US? What if that fawn were a human being? Would there even be a quarter of the outrage? I doubt it.
I lost all respect for the POS DNR. I will never donate to them now knowing what my money is used for. What a disgrace to the State.
DNR = Damn Near Russia!
That was for humor.
There are rules and regulations about this. The biggest complaint I hear from those who care about the environment is that the DNR doesn’t enforce rules. I’ve heard conservative people with lake residences complain out of one side of their face about their taxes (complaints because they are more than zero), “big government”, and the “DNR won’t let them” do this or that with their jet skis or other toys, and then turn around to complain that the DNR doesn’t do this or that to enforce the lake protection rules on shoreline development (that soneone else is doing, of course).
That and I don’t think the DNR’s day to day posture changes from admin to admin other than for budget reasons (big political issues aside). When the DNR gets uppity during Democratic administrations, it’s big time pinko socialist government control gone wild. Under Walker, it’s fascism gone wild.
And wouldn’t we love a story about warrantless searches in FitzWalkerstan?
The problem with attacking this one is that the DNR are, in the end, the good guys. Looks like the situation probably needs a more savvy DNR communications specialist to explain it with better with less explosiveness. And I’m sure those positions are the first to go in budget cuts.
And the DNR asked the shelter twice to voluntarily turn over the deer. Of course the DNR handled it poorly when they went into get the deer, but it is dead because of the shelter not the DNR.
As much as I respect SOME people in the DNR, this fawn was going to be sent BACK to Illinois..The Ham Fisted DNR under Scott Walker is just as ignorant and hard hearted as those capitol police arresting veterans and old ladies. ANOTHER THING, HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS, of baby deer are killed by harvesting machines out in the fields..the baby deer have no chance and are run through the hay harvestors, mangling their little bodies..some live for a few moments and up to a day. I KNOW this is a fact, as I have seen this happen on our farm. Stop this by requiring those machines to have a screen for large objects put on them…
It would be illegal to transport without appropriate paperwork.
The Department of No Results. SSDD
I am amazed that this incident surprises anyone inside Walker’s Wisconsin.
How is sending a SWAT team of jack booted thugs to kill a little fawn that much more cruel than the daily arrests and police brutality that rains down on those who dare to protest Scott Walker’s policies by singing at noontime in the Wisconsin Capitol?
The Capitol Brownshirts (police) have repeatedly brutalized ordinary citizens by throwing handcuffed elderly arrestees down stairs, refusing to render treatment to a Lutheran pastor having a heart attack, arresting kids for singing,…the list just gets sicker. In a state where this level of brutality in our Capitol building barely gets mentioned by the mainstream media, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see SWAT team raids on an animal shelter and the killing of a little fawn.
I’m amazed that the WDNR & Kenosha SWAT team storm troopers left ANY witnesses alive. We already know that they confiscated and deleted cellphone video of their raid. Amazing that they didn’t execute the caretakers of the animal shelter, claiming they were resisting their authority.
This sort of behavior is what passes for reality in Walker’s Wisconsin. Sad indeed.
Justin,
Just a wee bit over the top, don’t you think?
“…passes for reality…”?
Take a breath before you hit Post.
AnonyBob,
The ONLY part of my post that was perhaps “over the top” and obviously satire, was the part about getting rid of the witnesses to their SWAT team raids. My apologies to anyone who couldn’t see this as satire.
Unfortunately for those of us who live in Wisconsin, everything else in the post is a daily reality for those of us who live in Walker’s Wisconsin. And that is truly sad. Very sad.
Another lame attempt to connect the dots of anything negative to Governor Walker.
The problem is, the WDNR’s downward spiral, or rise to power depending upon your point of view began 4 Governor’s ago under Thompson when the DNR Secretary became an appointee. Next, DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzel created the CWD “disaster” which provided leverage to advance, push and perpetuate anything the WDNR wants to regarding deer management. They have re-written, generated and/or changed things that did not need change. Including the handling of captive fawns.
Yes, some do gooders picked up a fawn and delivered it for safe keeping. Then, the WDNR’s policy, protocols and procedures kicked in. I can only imagine the time and money spent to kill the fawn.
Fawns do not carry CWD – My source ? The DNR website – and this fawn was from Illinois which has never had a case of CWD.
DNR’s own site
“Why fawns are not routinely tested for CWD
The department highly discourages the testing of any fawns regardless of where they were harvested. Of the more than 15,800 fawns from the CWD-MZ that have been tested, only 27 tested positive, and most of those were nearly one year old. It is exceedingly unlikely that a deer less than one year old would test positive for CWD, even in the higher CWD prevalence areas of southern Wisconsin.
Few fawns will have been exposed to CWD, and because this disease spreads through the deer’s body very slowly, it is very rare that CWD has progressed in a fawn to a level that is detectable.
This means that testing a fawn provides almost no information valuable to understanding CWD in Wisconsin’s deer herd and does not provide information of great value to the hunter in making a decision about venison consumption.”
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/notesting.html
Moreover their own statutes say they can waive the requirements
perfect