My wife told me about a man who rescued a baby deer and raised it as a family pet has had his deer seized and threatened with death for lack of a permit that was arbitrarily denied.
Had he been a hunter, and had the mottled white doe that tumbled down a hill into his rural Oregon driveway six years ago been an adult, Jim Filipetti could have ponied up $19, applied for a deer tag and gunned the animal down. He could have butchered the deer the state now knows as "Snowball," mounted her head on the wall and moved on with his life. Story continues below ↓advertisementBut Filipetti chose to raise the injured fawn as a pet, spending thousands of dollars on veterinarian bills to treat her deformed hooves, ...
There are permits available to rehabilitate or otherwise care for wildlife, and Filipetti is seeking one, but the state has only agreed to issue 16 such licenses, and they're all spoken for, Hargrave explains. Still, because this was an "exceptional case" (read: exceptional public pressure) it looks as if Filipetti will be reunited, at least with Snowball, since she's incapable of surviving on her own.
Look, it's just stupid to spend all this public money worrying a guy about his pet deer. Maybe this "exceptional public pressure" will serve as a warning to bureaucrats around the country that they should err on the side of leaving the rest of us alone.
