Neighbors mobilize to free deer

A group of Plains residents worked together last week to free a young whitetail doe that was caught in a rope attached to a plastic sled.

A deer on property along McCrea Road was found partially immobilized last Thursday morning and although the device might not have caused death to the animal, it would have been hard for it to quickly get away from a predator. The entanglement probably also weakened the deer.

The sled had fallen off the top one of Marc and Ellen Childress' hay bales a week earlier. It broke in two, but the sled's rope got tangled around the deer's legs, shoulder and neck. Once the deer had been discovered, Ellen mobilized help from neighbors Wally Brown and Brad Stacey to help free the animal.

The four slowly backed the deer close to a fence. It wasn't moving fast and they figured it wasn't able to jump the fence. Stacey moved in to about three feet and tossed a lasso around its neck. "We didn't have to muscle it down at all. It was tired and scared. It got up one time and ran a little, but went right back down," said Stacey, a retired arborist and groundskeeper at the University of Montana. "We didn't have to do much. It went pretty fast."

Stacey had never lassoed an animal. "I didn't know if I could even do it. I was just hoping for the best. I was happy that I got it on so fast and that I didn't have to do much," he said. Stacey reported that he didn't even have to tighten the noose because the deer froze in place, and Brown got a blanket on the deer right away to keep it from kicking anyone. Marc Childress quickly moved in and cut the rope from the hapless deer. "It was definitely having trouble moving with the rope around its legs and it was exhausted," said Stacey, attributing this as the reason he was able to get so close and get the rope on the deer with little trouble.

The deer let out a deep and loud bellow when Stacey got the rope around its neck. In less than 30 seconds, Marc was able to cut the sled's rope and free the animal, which ran off with a slight limp, but otherwise OK.

"I think once she got to stretch her legs and when she gets food in her belly she'll be fine," said Stacey. "I was kind of excited to do this. It was an adventure and I enjoyed freeing the deer," he added. "It surprised me when she bellowed. I never heard that before. It was quite a sound for a little deer," he said.

Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife biologist Mike Ebinger in Thompson Falls said FWP in Sanders County gets about six calls a month about wildlife in trouble, mostly deer and mostly during winter and spring. Marc has helped tangled wildlife a few times. During his years with the U.S. Forest Service, he used to help the Wyoming Fish & Game Department on wildlife cases. He helped free a bull elk that was tangled in a barbed wire fence in Wyoming and has freed skunks and a coyote and was neither sprayed nor bit.

"It was a nice thing that it got out OK," said Ellen, who was surprised it was done so quickly.