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A love beyond law? Photos by Bob Pennell Thana Minion hugs a young buck she's named Midget. Minion maintains there's nothing wrong with her habit of feeding and grooming wild blacktail deer at her home on Copco Reservoir, but California game authorities disagree. Officials say Thana Minion's deer care goes too far By MARK FREEMAN HORNBROOK, Calif . -- Thana Minion cannot explain her mutual affinity with blacktail deer, other than maybe there is something in her spirit that wild bucks instinctively trust. Deer from as far away as the mountains of Oregon's Jackson and Klamath counties amble to Minion's A-frame home on Copco Reservoir for an unusual amount of attention and interaction. The deer walk to Minion unafraid, nuzzle her hand, suck her hair, even nap in her lap. They have names -- Hoppy, Ditsy-Doodle, Little Spike. Minion brushes burrs from their fur, picks ticks off hard-to-reach places and, for most of the past four years, gives them a food mix of alfalfa and barley. Minion says she loves these deer. California state wildlife officials say she is loving them to death, and that Minion will find herself back in jail if she does not stop. The 48-year-old deer-charmer is locked in a 2 1/2-year battle with biologists, police and prosecutors over what they say is her habitual violation of California's don't-feed-the-deer law. Thana Minion looks for ticks in the fur of Hoppy, a blacktail doe. While the tick-picking and grooming may be merely weird, the intentional feeding is illegal because it can alter the free-ranging animals' regular habits, create a public nuisance, spread diseases and kill them, authorities say. "She can pick off all the ticks she wants," Siskiyou County District Attorney Pete Knoll says. "But California has passed a law saying you can't feed deer." Knoll says he is no fan of this law, but it's a law. Despite repeated warnings, Minion's persistence led Knoll to file a misdemeanor deer-feeding charge against her in January. That charge, in part, led to Minion spending 40 days in the Siskiyou County Jail for violating probation from earlier charges of driving while suspended and resisting arrest involving incidents connected to her deer-feeding. Minion has a June 15 court date. While Knoll says he likely will drop the charge, she would be the first prosecuted under the law if she appears in court. Minion insists her deer-feeding causes no harm to the animals, which she claims are in need of her daily dose of 35 pounds of barley, alfalfa and corn to offset losses in their regular habitat. "I enjoy supplementing their food, seeing them healthier," she says. Moreover, she sees her prosecution as unjust because she believes the law applies to hunters -- not nonhunters like herself -- and that it is not legal because Californians did not vote on it. "I said, if there's a law, prove it," Minion says. "Put it on the ballot. That's the democratic way." Minion's way with the deer started accidentally when she and her husband, David, moved to their A-frame summer home on Copco Lake four years ago. Warned by her husband to be wary of deer, she was afraid of them until one small buck wandered up to her. The deer scratched the small of her back with its antler, nuzzled her hand and licked her clothing. "Up to that point," she says, "all I knew was that these were killer animals you didn't dare let touch you." She named that deer Little Spike, and began grooming and then feeding it. Soon, more bucks and does followed suit, many of which are deer from east Jackson and Klamath counties that winter in the Copco area just two miles south of the Oregon border. Minion began laying out corn, oats and barley in large feeding troughs. She would provide as much as 35 pounds of feed a day for as many as 60 deer at a time. About 20-30 deer live near her home full-time now, some of which have stopped migrating to Oregon in the spring. Fifteen have names; each has its own brush, because they will not tolerate sharing. "I pick their ticks, I groom them, I enjoy them," she says. But her neighbors began complaining 2 years ago, and that's when Minion's problems began. Unlike Oregon, which has no law against deer-feeding, California has banned the practice since 1996. Under the law, people must stop feeding the deer within a week after receiving a formal warning. If they do not, it becomes a prosecutable offense. Biologists and game wardens informed and warned Minion of the law time and time again, but she ignored the warnings, says Patrol Capt. Chuck Konvalin of the California Department of Fish and Game in Yreka. "Her feeding is so, so outlandish that it creates problems for everyone," Konvalin says. The state legislature enacted the law specifically for cases where feeding causes a perceived harm to the animals -- and wildlife manuals are awash in studies that say such feeding harms deer. Feeding disrupts the animals' regular migratory habits, causes them to congregate unnaturally and sets them up for greater losses to predators, biologists say. Also, feeding can trigger outbreaks of fatal diseases and so disrupt their digestive systems that the deer develop unstoppable diarrhea and die. The deer likely wander away and later die without Minion ever knowing, says John Thiebes, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Central Point. "I would be very concerned if we have someone so self-centered that she fully realizes she's stopping migration and deteriorating winter range," Thiebes says. "And, she's a parasite reservoir." In a Dec. 7, 1998, memo, state wildlife biologist Terri Weist concludes that Minion is "loving these animals to death. It is evident that she is more concerned for herself than for the welfare of the local deer populations." Minion dismisses her critics, and has continued to butt heads with authorities. In December, she was convicted of driving a golf cart while suspended and resisting arrest, charges that stemmed from complaints and incidents involving the congregating deer, she says. She was placed on probation and told to stop feeding deer. But she openly persisted, leading to a 40-day stint in jail this winter for violating her probation. "It's all worth it," Minion says. "I'd give my life for these deer." Minion has a June 15 court date pending for her illegal deer-feeding charge. But Knoll, the prosecutor, says his office will likely drop the pending charge because she did her jail time essentially for that offense. However, she will face future prosecution if caught feeding deer again. "I'd prefer not to prosecute Mrs. Minion," Knoll says. "I'd rather she comply with the law and the conditions of her probation. But she has flat-out refused." Minion remains coy about whether she has continued her feeding crusade. "At this time," she says, "I won't admit to feeding deer." She is willing to fight it out in court, and wants a statewide referendum on the law before she acknowledges its legality. Authorities have tired of Minion, but whether she becomes the first Californian tried and convicted for illegal feeding is "up to her," Konvalin says. "It would all be over if she would just stop," Konvalin says. "But she's a pretty hard sell. "She's got the bit between her teeth," he says, "and she won't let go." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA