By Mari Radtke
A juvenile fawn, guessed by O’Brien County Conservation Director Travis Scott estimated to be 8 or 9 months old, was released by Scott freed from being entangled on the east edge of Hannibal Waterman Wildlife Area. An ‚”alley” was created when about a 50 foot section of property line fence and a parallel fence on neighboring property stand roughly 24 inches apart. It appeared the deer tried to leap over one fence and was stopped by the second, falling into the alley. The deer somehow got one of its back legs tangled in the aged fence-line fencing. Scott and Mark Thompson cut the fencing and set the deer free. The incident occurred Saturday afternoon.
Scott notified the neighbor, Tom Konz, Saturday night about the incident. By 2:00pm Sunday the fence on his property was removed. Konz said, “I couldn’t stand it if a deer died because of the fence.” He went on to explain that when the fence was built in 2018 it was tightly tied to the smaller fence line posts and wiring. The two fences were connected by design to avoid exactly this kind of event.
On June 13, 2019, Konz received a certified letter from O’Brien County Conservation and signed by then director Terry Boltjes, telling him, “In order to comply with this law, your fence must either be lowered or removed from the common fence line.” The law referenced is referred to as the “tight fence” law. In response to the demand to modify the fence, Konz separated the two fences, removing it from the common fence line. They have stood side by side without incident for three and a half years.
The entire original letter can be read on our website at www.belltimescourier.com.