The Personal Narratives
“People on EveryBlock have been talking about it.”
“I walked by one in someone's yard the other day on my
way to DSW on Clark and Halsted. I wtf'd and walked merrily on my way.”
“I walked past it in someone's yard with a bunch of
people and it was just chilling, eating some leaves. The guy who lived in that
building told us its’ been around there for about a week.”
“DON'T LET YOUR DOGS NEAR THEM!”
EveryBlock
“Tonight I looked out my front window and thought I was
seeing things... there was a real, live deer in my neighbor's front yard on the
700 block of West Briar Place. The whole neighborhood and passersby were
astonished to see a very tame deer casually eating the neighbor's hosta
plants.”
Chicago
News Report
Last night, around 11:18 p.m., the deer was at 727 W Briar Place.
An officer at the scene said the deer was limping and one
of its legs was injured. The proper authorities were notified.
According to police dispatch, Animal Control said they
would be there in the morning.
Let's hope Bambi's mom makes it through the night.
“Somebody yelled down at me and called me, and a couple
of people all at once, saying we had a deer in our courtyard. I thought they
were pranking me. I was certain I was being punked,” said Bruce Alan Beal, a
resident of the building. “But sure enough, I came out, and there’s a doe.
She’s probably 3 or 4 years old, and she’s sitting in the back of our
courtyard, kind of hunkered down against the edge of the building.”
Red
Eye Chicago
But this deer incident is anything but an isolated one.
Apparently, deer, rats and intoxicated party-goers aren’t the only ones running
wild in your neighborhood at night, according to Steve Sullivan, curator of
urban ecology for the Chicago Academy of Sciences at the Peggy Notebaert Nature
Museum in Lincoln Park.
The Lincoln Park Zoo also tracks local animals through
its
Urban
Wildlife Institute
“This happens every single day in the city of Chicago,”
Sullivan said. “We have photographic evidence of deer, beaver, white-footed
mice — you name it — all this interspersed very regularly in all of our
neighborhoods throughout the city.”
But how exactly do these wild animals — which locally
also include coyotes, foxes, opossum, raccoons, skunks and many bird species —
get here? Sullivan says any patch of trees serves as their highway, until they
get to an area in the city when they can no longer hide.
While the city's Animal Care and Control department had
previously pledged to leave the deer alone unless they began to pose a threat
or were injured, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday that area residents'
offerings of nourishment threaten the animals' safety as the deer become
comfortable enough to settle more permanently in the area and resist
re-entering the wild.
“We just asked people not to feed them. Unfortunately,
people did not heed our advice," department commissioner Cherie Travis
told the Sun-Times.
ABC
local
The city's Animal Care and Control Department had some
concerns about tranquilizing the mother deer since she's still nursing her two
fawns, but city officials wanted to find them a safe new home before the Gay
Pride Parade which is two weeks away.
Chicago
Wild Life News
Chicago Animal Care and Control relocated the animals
early Saturday morning to a more suitable place in the city with plenty of
grass and space to roam around.
For the trip, dubbed “Operation Doe A Deer,” animal
control officers tranquilized the mother deer and wrapped the two fawns in
blankets.
and finally another take from
"Deer starts family in trendy Boystown" on
Sunday, and now, "Too many Whole Foods treats, so deer must leave Lake
View."
on Stratford Place
Many residents couldn't remember when they first noticed the spot caked in poop, though they all agreed that no other tree in the area bears the same fruit text - DNAinfo