After an attack that left him with a broken nose and stitches, an Okotoks man says something needs to be done about the town’s deer population.
Tony Nolan intervened after a doe began trampling his dog in the backyard of his home in Sheep River Heights on Nov. 14.
After trying to scare the deer off with an air horn, to no effect, Nolan said he pulled the deer away from the dog, and that is when it turned on him.
Besides stitches and a broken nose, Nolan received numerous upper and lower body injuries. His dog, a Weimaraner named Kit, was injured as a result of the incident.
“It was really pounding on her,” Nolan said. “I couldn’t let that deer kill my dog.
"I grabbed (the deer) by the ear, and then she turned around and come up on me."
The 83-year-old said there have been problems with aggressive deer in that part of Okotoks, and people are cautious, but in this case, he didn’t see the deer until it was too late.
There are children in the neighbourhood, and if this happened to one of them, they could be dead, he said.
“I can see a human getting killed,” he said. “The writing’s on the wall.
“I’m a tough old son of a gun, so I’m still around.”
He said he is speaking out about the incident because there needs to be something productive done to manage the population of deer in town.
“My issue about this now is if I don’t do something, I feel guilty if someone gets killed,” Nolan said.
The growth taking place in Okotoks means deer have nowhere to go, and their population needs to be controlled, he said.
Nolan said he used to love having deer around, but after the incident, he no longer feels that way.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “If we are going to live the way we do in Okotoks, something has to be done about it.”
The Town of Okotoks provides information on avoiding encounters with wildlife and warned residents about aggressive deer in Drake Landing and Suntree earlier this month.
“That doesn’t seem to be enough to keep people safe,” he said. “We all know that deer have babies, and they are supposed to be protective of them.
“But in my mind, it has gone too far.”
The Town recommends that people report aggressive deer encounters to Report-A-Poacher by calling 1-800-642-3800, 24 hours a day. Anyone in immediate danger is advised to call 911.
