鹿中的唐吉克德

Unlucky buck: Deer loses head-butt with lawn ornament

By BOB LAMB

This 640-poundconcrete elk statue lies on its side in the backyard of Mark and CarolBrye’s home in rural Viroqua. The dead buck lies about 20feet away.

Alove-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck waskilled when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in thebackyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua.

Bucksoften fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut.Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparringwith subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death ofone or both deer, but usually end with the biggest buck winning and thesmaller buck high-tailing it out to another area.

Mark Brye, who owns Brye Plumbing in Viroqua, was still laughing about the suicidal buck he found near his elk statue last week.

Brye said his morning ritual is to rise early and look out at the life-like statue about 40 yards from his home.

"Ourson and daughter gave it to us for Christmas four years ago because welike to hunt elk," Brye said. "The elk is a nice thing to see everymorning. It looks pretty cool, especially on a foggy morning."

Bryesaid he knew exactly what happened when he saw the statue tipped over.Although they were about the same height, the statue weighed at leastthree times more than the 180-pound deer.

He didn't realize the buck lay dead a short distance away.

"Icould tell the buck poked the statue a couple of times by the chippedpaint on it," Brye said, adding that the buck eventually rammed it likea mountain goat.

The buck apparently staggered about 20 feet and fell.

Bryeclaimed the buck with a tag from the Vernon County conservation warden.He laughed at the warden's tag note: "lawn ornament fight - lost."

Brye said the deer shattered its skull. The antlers were still on its head but were dangling.

"Thestatue is OK, but the antlers broke off when it tipped over," Bryesaid. "One side of the antlers is in one piece, but the other side isin five pieces."

Brye, 58, is considering removing the antlersfrom the unlucky buck and gluing them on the elk statue as aremembrance of the strange but true story.

The deer is butchered and in Brye's freezer. The elk remains on its side.

"I can't tip it back up until I get a whole bunch of guys to help me," he said.