Confronted by what they termed a "weird-acting" white-tailed deer, two women hiking along the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park fired off a round from a .357 handgun to scare off the animal.
The incident June 12 is the second reported occurrence of visitors to national parks resorting to handguns in dealing with wildlife since February when a law that allows park visitors to arm themselves took effect.
In the first, two backcountry travelers in Denali National Park and Preserve shot and killed a grizzly bear that charged them in late May.
In the Glacier incident, two unidentified women from Whitefish, Montana, were hiking along the Going-to-the-Sun Road near Logan Creek when they said they were approached by the deer. One woman tried to spray the animal with pepper spray, but she was about 30 feet away and the spray was ineffective, Glacier spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt said Friday.
"They had differing views on the distance that they were from the deer. One said 5 feet, one said 30 feet. The one who was 30 feet dispensed the pepper spray,” the park spokeswoman said. “They reportedly yelled, stomped their feet, and also waved a jacket at the deer to chase it off. It was somewhere between 30 feet and 5 feet away, depending on the two women’s perspective, and it continued to move toward them, swinging its head.
"The other woman retrieved her handgun and discharged a single round. Not at the deer. She directed it into the dirt, in what she described as a safe direction away from the deer," said Ms. Vanderbilt. They indicated that the deer stopped and moved into the brush, but continued to act 'weird.'"
There was no indication whether the deer was a buck or a doe or whether there might have been a fawn or fawns nearby that the animal might have been trying to protect.
No one witnessed the shooting, and park officials didn't learn of it until two days later when the women called rangers to describe their encounter.
“The women were not aware that they could not discharge a weapon in the park, so they were educated as to the fact that ... They cannot discharge the weapon except in instances of imminent danger or harm," said Ms. Vanderbilt.
The women were not cited for firing the .357 as there was no resource damage and since no one else witnessed the incident, said the park spokeswoman.
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"The women were not cited for firing the .357 as there was no real intestinal fortitude on the part of park administration for actually enforcing clearly artiiculated park regulations, even when presented such a ridiculous scenario as this."
Fixed it for you Amy.
They're from Montana and can't figure out that maybe there was nothing much to worry about with a deer? We've got mule deer all over my neighborhood, and short of actually charging anyone, I've learned to accept that none of their behavior is really "weird"; they just do their thing.
I was camping in Yosemite when a mule deer approached my backcountry campsite looking for something to eat. I was a little bit wary, but thought that maybe a little bit of "weirdness" myself might cause it to back off a bit. I grabbed my hiking poles and started waving them around wildly, but that didn't phase it. It was just content munching on leaves, and I figured there was little I could do about it.
There are going to have to be some better guidelines about what is or isn't appropriate when there's wildlife around. I could understand if this were a mountain lion or grizzly bear, but what good does making that noise really do?
Oh, mercy. Here we go . . . . .
A better headline might be "Weird Glacier National Park Visitor Pulls .357 On Hungry White Tailed Deer."
After pepper spray, noises, waving jackets the deer didn’t respond and they didn’t shoot to harm the animal but get it to leave which seems an appropriate action when all else failed. It’s possible the deer could have butted one of them and caused internal injuries and that was avoided.
Why didn't they just walk away?
I would have just hung out or backed up some distance. 5 feet is way too close for comfort, if the doe was that close. The front hooves of a deer can rip a person wide open. Only the two women can be the judge of their actions. As far as the gun law, I am an NRA member.
Maybe the animal was defending its territory. What right have we to chase an animal out of its own home?
There have been at least three known incidents of visitors firing hand guns at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the last month. It's becoming a very common occurrence in the backcountry.brib