Man pleads guilty to poisoning deer

A Ferndale man has pleaded guilty to poisoning deer, and has apparently been doing it for at least a couple of years to protect landscaping on his property, an investigating warden said.

Colin Reis, 39, pleaded guilty on March 25 in Flathead County Justice Court. He was fined $85, and given a deferred jail sentence of one year, a period in which he must remain law abiding.

The case came to the attention of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden Chuck Bartos after a woman reported that a deer was having convulsions in her driveway on Aero Lane, near the Ferndale Airport.

"It was a very sad sight," said the resident, Claudia Garland. "It was thrashing from side to side and kicking its legs and it kept slamming its head into the ground."

"I went out there and found the deer," Bartos said. "It wasn't dead and it was definitely sick, so we put it down."

The carcass was taken to the state's wildlife laboratory in Bozeman for a necropsy, which determined that the doe had strychnine in her stomach.

Based on interviews with Reis and neighbors, Bartos said he believes that Reis had been poisoning deer "for several years" because "he didn't want them in his yard eating his landscaping."

Bartos said Reis admitted to previously putting rat poison in pumpkins that attracted deer.

Bartos said the doe was the only poisoned animal he found.

"On this occasion, he poured a whole box of gopher poison on top of the ground, and according to his statements, it was to make the deer sick, so they wouldn't come around," Bartos said.

There is no way to know how many deer may have been poisoned over time, Bartos said. There is also no telling the potential effects on pets, small animals or raptors and bears that feed on deer carcasses, he said.

"Who knows how many other deer wandered off into trees and died where nobody saw them," Garland said.

At least a half-dozen neighbors are concerned about the potential for a contaminated food chain, right on up to hunters who have harvested deer in the area, said Aero Lane resident Michael Michlig.

"This is something that neighbors here in our area are particularly upset about," Michlig said. "We feel that it's eradicated a lot of the wildlife we have out here near the Ferndale Airport the last couple of year … We've been picking up dead birds and squirrels in our yards for the last couple of years."

Considering the potential impacts of poisoning wildlife, Michlig said the sentence from Justice of the Peace David Ortley "seems pretty minuscule" and Garland calls the sentence "offensive."

"He needs to be held accountable and 85 bucks is not accountable to me," she said.

Michlig questions the effectiveness of trying to protect landscaping by poisoning deer, considering that there are hundreds of deer that constantly move through the Swan River floodplain.

"The concept of poisoning them to keep them out of your yard is just ludicrous," he said.

Contacted Monday, Reis had little to say about the case.

"It's just a matter of my neighbor trying to harass me. This is over. It's really not a big deal," he said, declining further comment.