BY ANDREAS YILMA
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
NAUGATUCK — A search has been underway for a deer whose head is stuck in a plastic container.
Borough resident Courtney Toran, who has been searching for the deer and captured a photo of the animal while walking her dog, said the situation is heartbreaking. She first noticed the deer with her head stuck in the plastic jug on Jan. 1. There have been zero sightings of the deer recently and she was last seen on Thursday, Toran added.
“We have been seeing this deer since we have moved back in 2016. She frequents the woods behind our house and neighborhood,” Toran said. “So when we saw her with the plastic jug on her head and her fawn closely following, worry set in.”
Toran said she and her children thought the plastic jug would’ve fallen off the deer by now. When they saw the deer’s head trapped again, worry and panic set in.
Toran, who lives on Wooster Street, said she has been searching the woods about 5 hours each day since about Monday, Jan. 9 even through the rain to locate the deer. In their efforts to find the stricken animal, Toran and her neighbor divided the woods on each side of Wooster Street and behind Kosko Lane.
Toran claims about eight to ten deer live in those woods and she, her children and neighbor frequently see deer running through people’s yards and jumping through the street to get to the other side. She has been in contact with state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and one of its officers was helping them search as well.
The DEEP officer was out searching for the deer by sitting and waiting in the nearby woods from Monday to Thursday for several hours each day, Toran said.
“He (DEEP officer) was going above and beyond.” Toran said.
DEEP could not be reached Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Toran said she is frustrated at the whole ordeal as it could’ve been prevented if people disposed of their garbage properly.
“People are just throwing water bottles, plastic jugs, out their car window onto the side of our neighborhood. Our community needs to pull up their boot straps and get out into the woods, ponds, ditches and lakes and creeks and make the land that these creatures live off and on cleaner,” Toran said.
“We need to do better as a neighborhood and community. This doe, the Naugatuck doe, is just as much a part of our community as any other resident.”
