Bureaucrats Against Bambi, Part V

March 3, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I’ve written multi-column series on weighty issues such as capitalism, price controls, socialism, entitlement reform, class warfare, and the war on cash.

Those are all important topics, but nothing captures the essence of government better than columns about bureaucrats who don’t like deer. Especially fawns.

1. Bureaucrats in Virginia filed three misdemeanor charges against a man for the horrible crime of rescuing a deer that was hit by a car.
2. Bureaucrats in Maryland fined two men $90 each for not having life jackets when they had the gall to rescue a deer that fell through some ice.
3. Bureaucrats in Indiana are threatening prison time for a family that rescued a baby deer from coyotes.
4. Bureaucrats in Wisconsin, after engaging in aerial surveillance, conducted an armed raid to seize and kill a baby deer that was in a no-kill shelter.

Now we have a fifth edition in this grim series.

According to an article in People by Toria Sheffield, another innocent deer may face the death penalty. Here are some excerpts.

Tammy Shiery of Fayette County says that she and several members of her neighborhood have raised the 2-year-old deer — whom they named Baby — ever since they found him as a fawn…

However, Pennsylvania law states that deer can only be kept as domestic pets if they were born in captivity — which Baby was not. Shiery attempted to intervene when state authorities showed up to take Baby away and was subsequently arrested…

A recent news release…from the Pennsylvania Game Commission Southwest Region confirmed the office received a call about “the unlawful possession of a white-tailed deer taken from the wild.” The statement went on to note that.. “Possessing or taking animals from the wild as pets is prohibited under Pennsylvania law,” the statement continued. “The public is reminded that wildlife poses a safety risk and should not be handled or possessed.” …

The Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed it has Baby in its custody, and he has not been euthanized at this point in time… The game commission…is currently deciding on next steps for the animal.

The good news is that the bureaucrats apparently didn’t go overboard with an armed raid. Though it is reprehensible that Ms. Shiery was arrested.  

Since I can see the rationale for laws that make it illegal to own dangerous animals such as tigers and poisonous snakes, I’m not going to make an ultra-libertarian argument. Instead, I’ll make the semi-libertarian common-sense argument that a pet deer does not pose a danger to anyone. So why are bureaucrats wasting taxpayer money doing deer raids?

Maybe local governments should concentrate on real issues such as crime and education?

P.S. In my list of multi-column series, I should have mentioned Texas vs. California and Florida vs. New York.