When the jackbooted figures of authority kick in someone’s door and seize their property, you sort of kinda expect or at least hope that, on some level, they had it coming. Maybe they were smuggling dangerous contraband. Maybe they kept slaves. Maybe they had a stash of…
Deer?
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.
But Filipetti chose to raise the injured fawn as a pet, spending thousands of dollars on veterinarian bills to treat her deformed hooves, installing strips of carpet throughout his house so she wouldn’t slip on the hardwood floors, and feeding her a steady diet of sweetpeas, tomatoes and green beans—”the best that Safeway had to offer,” he says. After 12 months, the house painter moved her to a pen outside his home in Molalla, Ore., but she was still a member of the family. “It was like having a dog around the house,” Filipetti says.
Filipetti uses the past tense because his beloved Snowball has been seized by the state, which was considering euthanizing her…
Six hundred and fifty irate citizens flooded the agency’s phone lines over the next several days, demanding clemency for Snowball and her offspring…”I can legally blow the head off a deer during hunting season,” wrote Hillsboro’s Greg Ebert, in a letter to The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. “But God help me if I commit a humane act on its behalf.” At the outcry, state officials froze like, well, a doe in headlights.
Deer, deer, what are things coming to?
raincoaster 
Doe!
(A deer.)
(A female deer.)
(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)
It does seem like the authorities should have bigger fish to fry than a pet deer…
And Oregon is considered to be such a liberal state in these parts. Whodda thunk it! No wonder they say that truth is stranger than fiction.
Hope the official who saw fit to start this ball rolling finds his you know what, a _ _ in a skillet!
In entirely unrelated news, the Governor’s Annual Venison Banquet, cancelled due to protests from environmental groups, is now back on.
I can’t wait to hear Wandering Coyote’s feedback. Did you see her post about going to the … I think it was the Elk’s Lodge dinner…difficult for a vegetarian, to say the least. The taxidermy centerpiece pix are priceless.
The following was writen by my Boyfriend who is serving in Iraq..
I just want to take a moment to comment how relieved I am that snowball the deer was returned to its family. In between kicking Iraqi children, and oppressing the clearly innocent Iraqi local citizens, most of us have been following the Snowball the deer story and battle very closely. When we heard that Snowball the deer was captured by the evil government empire who is hell bent on causing war and raising taxes (and rumors of cutting health care!! *eeekkk*), we all over here in Iraq were very worried. After all, Princess Snowball knew the location of the secret rebel alliance base. However, once the rebels obtained the plans of the local Clackamas Death Star where Snowball was being imprisoned (cell block D “royal prisoners ward”), an all out attack could be launched to rescue Princess Snowball before the evil government empire could do unspeakable horror to the Princess. That horror being something so evil its hard to say or type it. But being a brave soldier i am, i will say it. The empire was actually going to release Snowball into the wild!! (Lord forgive me for saying that.) And we all know wild animals do not belong in the wild, they need to be under our care and protection. So with the Clackamas Death Star plans in hand, and led by Judge Eve Miller with the newest x-wing fighters, the empire had not a chance in hippie hell of keeping the beloved Snowball.
Thanks for listening!!!!
What health care? You’re Americans!