Concrete elk loses encounter with deer

The Daily Inter Lake

Six hundred pounds of concrete apparently is no match for an iron will, even in the animal kingdom.

Pam O'Lexey thinks a rampaging buck deer took down her concrete elk lawn ornament Thursday night.

"I would think it would have been a rivalry," she said.

When she first discovered the damage, "I thought vandals had finally hit."

But the prints around her elk were hoofed, not human, and the scratches on her statue look like they came from antlers.

Something tore the elk from the ground where it had been secured with rebar. O'Lexey found the hulking statue laying on its side, an antler destroyed, and unknown damage beneath it.

"I was stunned," she said Friday.

She has a suspect.

On Thursday night, O'Lexey's daughter spotted four deer lurking in a neighbor's flower bed. O'Lexey lives in Hillcrest Estates and there have been deer cutting across her yard and living across Evergreen Drive for a while.

She didn't hear anything unusual Thursday night, though.

The concrete elk has been in her yard since spring. The colored statue depicts a bugling elk. The fact that a companion concrete bear was unscathed Thursday night heightens O'Lexey's suspicions that a jealous buck took out her elk.

She will contact the North Dakota man who made the elk to see what repairing it will cost, but she's not in a hurry.

"I'm going to leave it on its side until hunting season is over."

She tried to call Fish, Wildlife and Parks on Friday to see what a game warden could tell her about a buck with enough power to dominate a 600-pound statue, but the office was shut down for Veterans Day.

O'Lexey was looking forward to asking her husband if he saw or heard anything unusual around the house before he left early Friday.

But he might have been too preoccupied to notice that a buck battle had occurred in the yard.

He was going hunting.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com