We all bear some responsibility for Spanky's death

It’s been said that killing an animal is much more difficult if it has a name.

If that’s true, it must have been a gut-wrenching experience to shoot and kill the big mule-deer buck that spent the summer roaming through Libby as though he was one of us.

That buck, after all, had several names.

Some people called him Rudy. Others called him Spanky. And I would bet there were countless other names, perhaps a different one in each of his favorite neighborhoods. 

To me, he was Spanky. That’s what George Mercer called him when he invited me into his office at Glacier Bank this spring to show me pictures he had taken of the regal buck in the parking lot.

Mercer admired Spanky’s panache, evidenced by the manner in which the buck seemed to favor crosswalks as he trotted across the streets. And I talked about getting within five feet of him one evening while he munched on some wayward grass in the alley behind The Western News.

At the time, I think we both knew Spanky wouldn’t be long in this world; the only questions were when, who and by what method.

Only a few months later, we got our answers when decision-makers at the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks made the call to eliminate the threat of a big male deer who had grown too comfortable around humans and was liable to hurt someone during the rutting season.

The word the agency used to describe Spanky’s status was “dispatched,” which, without the public-relations twist, means killed.

In the old days, state officials might have handled the Spanky situation a bit more gently, considering the buck had become a community mascot, of sorts.

For instance, they might have made it a personal mission to move the buck out of town, while inflicting just enough pain to make sure there would be no repeat visits. They might have even interpreted the agency’s rules a bit differently in order to capture and release the buck into the wilderness, or perhaps they would have encouraged regular folks to do it instead.  

Today, however, there is always a threat of being sued.

This is the scenario that Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks feared: A complaint comes in regarding an aggressive deer, the agency scares the deer out of town, the deer comes back to town and hurts someone, and then that someone sues the agency’s pants off.

Unfortunately, that’s a reasonable concern. Is it likely? Probably not. But the agency’s attorneys need only consider the possibility, not the odds.

So, when Spanky failed to recognize that a dose of bear spray to his face was Montana’s way of trying to save his life, he was killed as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Part of me wants to be upset at Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, but I believe every complaint voiced publicly should be followed by a proposed solution. And I can’t think of a solution that would have completely insulated the agency from a lawsuit.

However, it’s a bit perplexing that the agency refused to tranquilize, transport and collar the buck due to fears of an outbreak of a disease that has never been a problem in Montana. 

While some questions still remain, there certainly is no good reason to be upset with Game Warden Tamie Laverdure, who was tasked to pull the trigger on Spanky.

It wasn’t her call to kill the buck – she was only following orders. And, after talking with her briefly after the incident, I’m pretty sure it will go down in her memory as one of the most distasteful duties she has been ordered to perform.

It’s unclear why the city didn’t take some action to remove Spanky, considering Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks gave the Libby Police Department a bunch of rubber bullets to use on deer that cause problems.

But, considering everything we now know about Spanky’s demise, it’s entirely possible that we all share some of the blame for collectively giving the buck an impression that it was acceptable for him to live among us.

We could have limited his access to food. We could have chased him out of our yards. We could have treated him like a wild animal, instead of enabling him to enjoy the company of humans.

If we wouldn’t have named him, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a big deal when someone had to kill him.

(Matt Bunk is publisher of The Western News.)