Retired and moving to Lake Granby

[Colorado Rambler]

^^^

Yeah, we know all about those Ridgway people. Rumor has it that they love dogs and have very kind hearts. If the word gets out about Ridgway, the mass migration currently going on to Colorado and away from everywhere else might stop. If that happened, we might all have enough water to drink, after all. Ridgway is EVIL!

[COcheesehead]

Ridgway has a good breakfast/lunch spot too, Provisions at the Barbershop.

[waltcolorado]

Ridgway does have somewhat of a transient and squatter problem. I took this picture last week as proof of the sort of thing that's happening there!!

[pikabike]

Deer overpopulation is in fact a real serious problem in some places. Ridgway might not have that problem because hunting is allowed nearby.

Move to a town or large suburb near former deer habitat with low speed limits, lots of pet food bowls and gardens outside, Bambi-worshipping residents, and few natural predators, and you’ll see the damage too many deer cause. I lived in one such place for a few years. Does generally bear two young every year of adulthood, and in truly natural environments, predation takes down a good percentage of those. In the deer-promoting places, there isn’t enough kill-off. It’s like a very bad cartoon in which the deer population literally balloons in only a couple of years. That is not a stable balance at all.

I like finding that a mountain lion has killed a deer. The carcass feeds the lion, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, hawks, eagles, ravens, magpies, crows, probably raccoons and skunks, vultures (in the warm seasons), insects, and last but not least, microorganisms that help soil health.

Deer meat also makes it less appealing for lions to kill livestock and pet dogs.

[waltcolorado]

In Deer's defense, at least their over population isn't causing a global increase in the planet's temperature.

We definitely share this area with Mountain Lions! I have seen gory evidence on our lot. Neighbors have seen them, I never have (yet). Attacks on humans are very rare.. but you might have seen this article from March 3, 2022 https://apnews.com/article/colorado-...b02e8b3090143f

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by waltcolorado

In Deer's defense, at least their over population isn't causing a global increase in the planet's temperature.

We definitely share this area with Mountain Lions! I have seen gory evidence on our lot. Neighbors have seen them, I never have (yet). Attacks on humans are very rare.. but you might have seen this article from March 3, 2022 https://apnews.com/article/colorado-...b02e8b3090143f

Oh, we definitely have all the predators that I listed right near us. I am GLAD they’re here. This place and where we used to live in CO both had them in enough numbers to keep the deer population’s ups and downs self-correcting. It wasn’t till we went to that town described when I saw first-hand what a nightmare the deer can become.

Their human bum population also exploded.

[Colorado Rambler]

I am much more scared of deer than I am mountain lions. There are so many deer and they are everywhere. Humans have hunting season and deer have blind curves on the road or thick brush which allows them to be perfectly camouflaged until the instant they leap out right in front of your car. The deer all give each other high fives and dash off as you struggle to regain control of your car. Mountain lions have far more integrity than deer do. You will never see five mountain lions dash out on the road just as your car comes around the bend. No mountain lion worth its salt will stand in the middle of the road, transfixed by your headlights, staring you down just to see how you might re-act.

I almost got killed by a deer which leaped out in front of my car on Highway 550 near Durango. I automatically applied my brakes which caused my car to slide off the road, hit a drainage ditch and flip over, throwing me out through the sun roof. I was in intensive care for a month.

Deer? Bah! Quit feeding them and chase them off if they happen to trespass on your property. Mountain lions? I put out fresh organic catnip and sing a little song in their honor that starts out, "Here, Kitty Kitty..."

[StcLurker]

Ok you have me curious, how were you thrown out of a sunroof? I wouldn't blame the deer for that one, maybe bad tires, no seatbelt and too fast for conditions?

I'm not defending the deer, but years as a wrecker driver leads me to believe one or all of those were factors

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

I am much more scared of deer than I am mountain lions. There are so many deer and they are everywhere. Humans have hunting season and deer have blind curves on the road or thick brush which allows them to be perfectly camouflaged until the instant they leap out right in front of your car. The deer all give each other high fives and dash off as you struggle to regain control of your car. Mountain lions have far more integrity than deer do. You will never see five mountain lions dash out on the road just as your car comes around the bend. No mountain lion worth its salt will stand in the middle of the road, transfixed by your headlights, staring you down just to see how you might re-act.

I almost got killed by a deer which leaped out in front of my car on Highway 550 near Durango. I automatically applied my brakes which caused my car to slide off the road, hit a drainage ditch and flip over, throwing me out through the sun roof. I was in intensive care for a month.

Deer? Bah! Quit feeding them and chase them off if they happen to trespass on your property. Mountain lions? I put out fresh organic catnip and sing a little song in their honor that starts out, "Here, Kitty Kitty..."

That’s hilarious, because we sing out, “Here, Big Kitty!” when we see deer sticking around too close to the house. No catnip, though. Medium Kitty (bobcat) sometimes kills deer, too.

Don’t let dogs chase deer off your property. Aside from that being considered wildlife harassment, the deer’s honest-to-god Fight Or Flight response can be deadly for third parties, as you discovered. Deer really are dumb, dumb, dumb, and there is zero thinking when they sense a threat. They literally spin 180 degrees and bolt into whatever is in that direction without looking first.

Example, in the deer-infested town described earlier, someone’s loose dog chased a deer, which immediately jumped the other direction—across a street where some poor woman was driving (no more than 20 mph). She didn’t die, but the deer smashed fully into the windshield and was stuck there.

Another example: After yet another loose dog in that leash-law town ran at a big buck, its Flight made it leap over a classic Victorian wrought-iron fence around a park. Except the buck did not leap OVER high enough and far enough to clear the spiked tips of the 6’ fence. It got impaled just in front of the hind legs and was also stuck there, bleeding profusely. When that one happened, I Googled all such incidents and found this had killed other deer. Bucks. The males must be even dumber, or testosterone-addled.

None of the wild kitties would rush out en masse, because they are not herd animals.

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by StcLurker

Ok you have me curious, how were you thrown out of a sunroof? I wouldn't blame the deer for that one, maybe bad tires, no seatbelt and too fast for conditions?

I'm not defending the deer, but years as a wrecker driver leads me to believe one or all of those were factors

Yup. This is one of those "Kids, please don't try this at home" stories. I was young and dumb and had just had a big fight with the guy who was my boyfriend at the time. I flounced out of the restaurant we'd been eating in and jumped into my Datsun (anyone remember them?) and sped off without putting on my seat belt. When my car flipped over ten miles down the road, my head hit the closed sunroof, and out I went, head first. I always knew that I could be hard-headed, but that incident was a mite extreme.

I did learn from that accident. Every since then - no matter how many men I may be mad at - I always click on my seatbelt before I ride off into the sunset.