Volunteer of the Month

M.S. (11) is one of our youngest volunteers. She loves to chop up apples and carrots for the deer and is great at pumping water into their trough. She was one of the first to hand feed KoKo in late August and now KoKo is high on her list of favourites, along with her beloved deer, Murph, who's in the background of this photo.

Closeup: Mike

Here's a closeup of Mike now that his velvet has vanished, showing the injury on his right brow antler. Although the antler touches his forehead, there does not appear to be any rubbing and from our observations there is no problem with his vision.

Nearly all deer have a facial gland in front of each eye which you can see in this photo. The gland contains a strongly scented pheromone used to mark his home range. Bucks of a wide range of species open these glands wide when angry or excited.

Max moments after his velvet loss

Max, moments after he tore away at his velvet. August 22, 2007.

More dreads

More deer are losing the velvet that has covered their growing antlers since April/May. Gulliver and Moki are added to the list. KoKo lost his velvet overnight, from black velvet to bone with no signs of the dried velvet strands. Mike has lost his velvet and we are pleased that his injured brow antler has hardened in such a way as not to impair his vision. It looks like a broken finger and we are still trying to get a good picture of it.

This picture shows Ty in the background with his velvet still on. Moki is in the foreground with the velvet torn away from his left antler and the hard right antler, but some of the strands of velvet are still attached to the base (burr) and look like dreadlocks dangling on his forehead and sometimes over his eyes. This bothers the deer and they rub their antlers against the juniper and cedar boughs to tear away at them and hurry up with their loss.

Velvet shreds

Two of our bucks have shedded their velvet so far -- both in the past few days. First EGee, then Dandy. Our picture of EGee was not the greatest, but Dandy stopped moving his head from side to side long enough to give us this picture. The deer are bothered by the long strips that hang in front of their eyes both the shreds of velvet dry and fall off in about 48 hours.

Sign posted

Allan, Aida, Adam, Jane and the new sign

As of yesterday afternoon, our official sign is finished and in place at the entrance to the new Reserve. Thanks to artist, Aida Sulcs, for her excellent work which captures George perfectly in his prime.

Merci also to Diane Lalonde and Adam Strauss for helping to mount the sign.

July update and thanks

Thanks to Don Murphy, we have a wonderful new gate that has allowed us to start work on the barn and that opens wide to allow tractor-drawn hay wagons easy entry to the enclosure.

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With design, coordination and labour from Terry Thomson and Sam Bush, we have built a lean-to on the south side of the barn which will provide the bucks with warm shelter from winter winds, ice storms, etc. We were able to use lumber and plywood salvaged from the old reserve by Don in addition to the lumber that was stored in the new Reserve's barn. Also helping in this project are Adam Strauss and Drew Sauve.

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Emerald Murphy has donated 250 bales of this year's hay which is now stacked in our loft thanks to help from Murph and Don. On Monday, July 23, Bruce Burt, our 90 year old volunteer, drove his tractor (purchased in 1949) and a load of 113 bales from his farm to the reserve about 4km. We are happy to report that both the tractor and he made the trip and the descent down the Florida Road hill without incident. Thanks to Colin Saccary and Paige for helping us unload the hay wagon and stack the bales. Thanks to Barry, Bruce and Stewart for the "supervision".

The deer are flourishing, growing enormous antlers and very relaxed. They've convinced us that they love their new home.

Many thanks from Allan and Jane

Bash, Buddy, Dandy, EGee, George, Gulliver, KoKo,

Max, Mike, Moki, Murph, Spike & Ty