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I thank fishskicanoe for the wrist-rocket suggestion, and will look for a potent slingshot on my next trip to the store.
As for Tom Ranker's proposal that I "move out of their home range," every spot I might inhabit was at some time some creature's home range -- near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River (that is, the heart of downtown Denver) on July 7, 1843, John C. Fremont saw a grizzly bear lumbering along the river bank.
As nearly as I can tell, muleys in Salida are a relatively recent development. Zebulon Pike's party passed through here on Dec. 26, 1806, and as his journal makes clear, they were always on the lookout for deer to shoot and eat. Pike didn't note any hereabouts, although they did shoot some bison a few miles upriver on Dec. 24.
The earliest photos of Salida, circa 1880, show a barren chunk of high desert without much vegetation for large herbivores. The back part of our house was built in 1885. The foliage arrived after the town built ditches to water trees and lawns.
Even at that, deer were uncommon in town for a long time. A few years ago, I was poring through the 1967 files of the local newspaper, working on a magazine article about the end of railroad passenger service here. Back then it was front-page news when somebody saw a deer in town.
Now it's about as remarkable as seeing a dog. You often see deer on lawns and walking down alleys. I'd just never seen them in my yard until this winter. If this is now their "home range," it's a relatively recent development. I think it would be easier to argue that people transformed this spot into their "home range," and then the deer moved in, rather than the reverse.
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