Downtown Deer.
Most of the locals will disagree with me on this one, and I think that I would as well if I was actually living there, but take a look at these two pics
Helena, MT has a horrendous deer problem. Both of those photos were taken at The Wife’s sister’s house while I was out snapping photos of the cars shown today and yesterday.
There are somewhere between 300-400 deer living in or near the residential neighborhoods in the southwest part of the city. Good luck keeping a flower bed of vegetable garden, even in a fenced yard.
While this is Montana, Helena is the state capital, and liberal “No shooting cute, Bambi-like animals in your yard” laws prohibit folks from offing these rose munching antlered rodents when they stand in your yard and eat the apples off your tree.
Hell, even when they chase your dog and/or children, you have to call the police.
The city paid a “consultant” $50K to come out, study the problem, and tell the city executives “Well, you’re going to have to have them shot.”
The city execs, apparently horrified at the idea, paid the state fish & game department another $50K to try and find a way to trap and relocate them. Because transporting wild animals is a bitch, the state fish & game people handed them a plan and a proposed bill that caused Olestra-like leakage in their shorts.
Finally, after spending a year and $100,000 of the citizen’s money to solve a problem that could have been solved by a one-day handgun only/shotgun only hunt, which would have taken care of the problem in a week and also actually generated revenue, the city and the state fish and game folks are going to cull 50 of the animals.
Oh sure, this will still leave 250-350 of the animals roaming the city, but at least “The Professionals” looked into the problem with tender-loving care. We’ll see if they’re smart enough to hand the venison out to those who need it and not just let the carcases rot.
Let me just say that I kept my Ruger Single-Six quite handy while out at garage sales with The Wife and her Mother.
And Lime disease spread everywhere. Deer are nothing more than large, hoofed rats.
Well, glad you enjoyed MT. My in-laws are up in that exact neck of the woods as well (East of Clancy, MT) in the Helena Natl Forest. We were up there 1st week of June, had snow on the ground the first morning along with a heard of Elk in the yard. I already told MrsGunGeek that when we retire so I don’t have to shovel/plow snow to get to work in the morning we can move up there.
Set up a special season. Archery … and allow long time rifle shooters to use 120 lb plus crossbows.
One week and Bambi will leave town.
In fact … state pre-emption would work here just fine. The state can mandate archery hunting inside any city limits with the property owner’s permission, and allow crossbow hunting during rifle season there as well.
Having deer and elk hide out in town is often a problem, especially during hunting season.
This will fix it pretty fast.
I was thinking archery as well, but as you can see, it didn’t make it into the post.
And after seeing all the bows for sale at the garage sales in town after someone in the household upgraded, I have to whole heartedly agree with you that it’d work.