<\/p>\n
One day in May 2019, the fawn wandered onto Cammy Rowe’s farm in Lawrence. She followed the trail back into the nearby woods and found her mother dead.<\/p>\n
She called him several times for help while protecting him. <\/p>\n
“I called every animal shelter I could find and none would take him in,” she wrote in a recent online fundraiser. “They told me to leave him alone in the forest and let nature take its course, but I couldn’t do it.”<\/p>\n
So she adopted the male whitetail permanently. She put him in a stall, bottle-fed him, and watched him grow into a penny.<\/p>\n
Lowe had the means to do so. She operates a 30-acre animal farm, TLC Country Stables, offering horseback riding lessons, pony rides, and children’s parties. Children can pet him there.<\/p>\n
She named him Rudolph, or Rudy for short.<\/p>\n
Lowe says she’s the only mother Rudy has ever really known. “He’s my baby.”<\/p>\n
She became so attached to Rudy that she later said that if she had to lose him, she would run away to Canada with him.<\/p>\n
Rudy lived happily on her Van Kirk Road farm for years until 2024, when authorities learned the deer was a pet — Lowe’s attorney said someone had “snatched” her — and state conservation officers showed up and eventually charged her with unauthorized possession of a potentially dangerous animal and two related charges.<\/p>\n
Following a two-year legal battle over Rudy, the case is scheduled for trial next Wednesday in Lawrence Municipal Court.<\/p>\n
Among them are Lowe and her attorney, John W. Hartman, who are concerned that state wildlife officials would kill Rudy if they could protect him. And Hartman said the judge in the case threatened Rowe with prison time.<\/p>\n
“I can’t believe it. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hartman said.<\/p>\n
In the other corner are Lt. Andrew Riviero of the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Department, who prosecuted Lowe, and Deputy Attorney General Matthew D. Knoblausch, who is prosecuting the case.<\/p>\n
Their boss declined to comment, but their argument in court documents is straightforward. Lowe keeps a deer as a pet, which is against the law.<\/p>\n
And in the middle of this tug of war is Rudy the antlered deer, now about 7 years old.<\/p>\n
But where is Rudy?<\/p>\n
Rudy’s exact location is unknown. Mr. Hartman won’t discuss it, but Mr. Lowe posted in a recent online fundraiser that Rudy “ran away.”<\/p>\n
Rudy’s location could complicate matters, as the state wants to seize him. <\/p>\n
Hartmann believes there are other problems as well. One of the charges is that Rowe had Rudy spayed when he was about six months old, which is also against the law, authorities said. Mr. Rowe admitted this to Mr. Riviero, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to prove it, okay,\u201d Hartman said.<\/p>\n
The third charge is interfering with a conservation officer, which Hartman says is not entirely accurate. Unfortunately for Lowe, when Riviero arrived at the farm in July 2024, Lowe was “fully cooperative” and she showed him the deer first. <\/p>\n
“I don’t even know what the charges are,” Hartman said.<\/p>\n
Hartman said the crux of the issue is that the state of New Jersey wants to oust Rudy and prosecute a woman who has never faced legal trouble for rescuing animals in need, but they are being relentless.<\/p>\n
Hartman said Fish and Wildlife officials are “bloodthirsty.”<\/p>\n
“They’re trying to kill this little deer. I can’t believe it,” Hartman said. “They just want to put an air gun to your head and blow your brains out. That’s all I can say. Kill a little deer.”<\/p>\n
“And that’s like bringing the entire state government and the law to bear on this woman who’s never been in trouble in her life and who’s helping animals, and they actually want that, and they’re threatening to put her in jail,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hartman said the judge in the case tried to resolve the dispute without a trial last summer, and at one point there was discussion about having the deer issue a health certificate so Lowe could keep Rudy.<\/p>\n
“No, they didn’t care,” Hartman said. “They just want to kill this guy.”<\/p>\n
The Fish and Wildlife Authority, a division of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said it does not comment on ongoing cases.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Knoblauch’s legal brief says nothing about euthanizing the animals. But the state says it wants to arrest him.<\/p>\n
The brief also describes Officer Riviero’s actions in the case, showing that he did not immediately charge Lowe and initially said he did not intend to take the deer.<\/p>\n
According to Knoblauch’s brief, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife learned of the deer’s presence on July 15, 2024. Although the details were not disclosed, the information came from a local animal control officer.<\/p>\n
Hartman said an “informant” who entered Lowe’s property took photos and sent them to local animal authorities, who then notified the state. He said the person who did that was someone who had “nothing better to do than annoy people and try to kill deer.”<\/p>\n
The state took action because keeping deer as pets is illegal and can be dangerous, Knoblauch wrote in a prepared statement. That is why it has been regulated by governments since colonial times, and why states have held jurisdiction over it for over 130 years.<\/p>\n
“Specifically, white-tailed deer, especially males, are prone to causing serious injuries to humans and are also carriers of various diseases, including chronic wasting disease, which is invariably fatal,” Knoblauch wrote.<\/p>\n
Mr. Riviero first spoke with Mr. Lowe on Mr. Lowe’s farm on July 25. Lowe was wearing a body camera at the time and the conversation was recorded, during which he explained that it was against the law to possess the deer. <\/p>\n
“Do you have a pet deer here?” the lieutenant asked. <\/p>\n
“I have a deer. It has a deviated septum,” she replied. She explained that she had been with him for five years.<\/p>\n
“Can I take a look? Can you show me?” Riviero asked.<\/p>\n
“He’s going to start crying. He’s my baby and I’ll take him to Canada if I have to,” Lowe said as he drove Riviero to Rudy’s stable.<\/p>\n
At the stable, Knoblauch said in a written statement, “Mr. Rowe hosted a birthday party where children petted deer and told the children that it was illegal for me to own a deer and that I would be devastated if someone handed me over.”<\/p>\n
Riviello told her he would not seize the deer that day, but asked her to sign a document stating that the deer would not be destroyed while the case continued to be investigated.<\/p>\n
But she refused. <\/p>\n
“I wonder what will happen when I come back. [and] Isn’t it here? \u201d she said.<\/p>\n
“Then you will be fined,” Mr. Riviello replied. <\/p>\n
“Who’s to say it didn’t come loose?” Lowe asked.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ribiero did not answer her rhetorical questions and left the farm after seeing Rudy in the safety of the barn, Mr. Knoblauch wrote.<\/p>\n
Over the next few months, the battle over Rudy’s future unfolded via email.<\/p>\n
Riviero told Rowe on Aug. 1, 2024, that the state plans to seize the deer within the next week.<\/p>\n
The next day, Lowe said it was “cruel” and had applied for permission to legally own Rudy the same day. <\/p>\n
The state denied Lowe’s application four days later.<\/p>\n
“The deer is no longer on my property. I believe it was safely removed following your procedures,” Lowe said in an email to the state later that fall, claiming the state had removed Rudy.<\/p>\n
The state did not. There were also no local animal control personnel in Lawrence, Knoblauch wrote.<\/p>\n
On November 27, 2024, Ms. Ribiero arrived at Ms. Rowe’s home and charged her with violating the state Conservation Act. He also gave her a letter stating that the state had not seized the deer but that she was to give birth to Rudy within 20 days.<\/p>\n Given its hardline stance, Hartman said it’s unclear why the state didn’t just take the deer during the 2024 brawl. “They probably didn’t have a rice field cart for the deer,” he says.<\/p>\n Hartman said the state is treating Rowe unfairly because he saved his life. He says New Jersey should be liberal.<\/p>\n “I wonder if the new governor knows that this is going on, because I think she would be shocked to know what these people who are now working for her are doing, and they’re as good as slaughtering this poor little deer,” Hartman wondered.<\/p>\n He likened the incident to Peanut the Squirrel, the Instagram-famous squirrel that New York authorities seized from a Pennsylvania man who witnessed his mother being hit and killed by a car in New York City. Officials euthanized Peanut, and the incident inspired pending legislation that would create a waiting period before killing protected animals.<\/p>\n “This is 10 times worse,” Hartman believes.<\/p>\n As legal costs mount, Lowe set up a GoFundMe earlier this month. \u201cDid you know that saving an animal\u2019s life could land you in jail?\u201d she led. <\/p>\n “For years, I have quietly cared for Rudy and given him a safe, loving home. But last year, someone reported me for having a deer, and I have spent the last year and a half in court. The case is still ongoing and legal fees are piling up. Rudy is no longer with me. He escaped from the barn a while ago. But I am still facing the consequences of trying to save his life.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #story #Rudy #rescued #deer #life #Jersey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One day in May 2019, the fawn wandered onto Cammy Rowe’s farm in Lawrence. She followed the trail back into the nearby woods and found her mother dead. She called him several times for help while protecting him. “I called every animal shelter I could find and none would take him in,” she wrote in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1430,2679,1614,2016,2678,604],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-deer","tag-jersey","tag-life","tag-rescued","tag-rudy","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}From farm to court<\/h3>\n