A Seattle Party Ran Fifteen Deer Into Puget Sound — Then Shot Them From Boats
Vashon Island settlers had let the local deer grow so tame they were a familiar sight. Then one snowy dawn a hunting party came over from Seattle with five hounds and swept the herd into the water.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Burton, Feb. 2. — Special. — The settlers on the island have tried to protect the deer in this part, especially in not allowing dogs to run them, in consequence of which they have been on the increase, and were often seen, and were quite tame. In the last snow, before the limit of the game law expired, a large party came over from Seattle early in the morning with five hounds, and before hardly any one knew it they had run fifteen out in the water, where they shot them from boats, and a steamer ran in and took them off. It was fortunate for their dogs that they got away before the settlers found it out.
“before hardly any one knew it they had run fifteen out in the water, where they shot them from boats, and a steamer ran in and took them off.”
Vashon Island is still deer country, and Washington is still arguing about who gets to hunt it and how. The 1895 complaint has a very modern shape: a game law with an expiry date, outside hunters with better equipment and a boat, and a local community that had been quietly managing the resource itself. Substitute a disputed season or a tribal treaty right for the expired limit and the argument barely changes.
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