The residents of Dallas, Oregon, need to get a handle on their Christmas light displays. For the second time this holiday season, officials with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife found themselves called in to rescue a buck that found himself tangled in a string of festive lights.
The other rescue happened just before Thanksgiving, also within the city limits. The big difference between the two incidents is this latest one involved a buck that only has three legs! Photos posted to the ODFW Twitter page show most of the buck's right front leg is entirely gone. Only a small stub remains.
Despite the injury, the ODFW noted that the wound appeared to be fully healed and the buck was still able to move around. The residents of Dallas had taken to calling this buck "Tripod," for obvious reasons. In any case, Tripod recently found himself decked out in someone's holiday display and in need of some help.
As with the other buck that was rescued last month, the ODFW was able to locate the buck and tranquilize him. Once the buck was sound asleep, ODFW personnel untangled the buck's antlers, and the animal was allowed to go free again.
While it is getting a little late in the year for rutting activity, bucks will still rub their antlers on branches and bushes. If they are unlucky enough to do this where someone has a holiday display, it can result in incidents like this one. Fortunately for Tripod and the other rescued buck, humans were able to intervene and fix the mess.
The first time this happened, the ODFW asked residents to be mindful of where they were placing their Christmas lights. They recommended hanging them only up high where feisty bucks can't accidentally get tangled in them. Hopefully, the residents of Dallas get the memo the second time around.
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