Though he violated no laws or neighborhood covenants when trapping exotic deer at his home in the Ruby Ranch subdivision near Buda, Lonnie Ardrey has been the victim of vandalism after being called a thief during a homeowners’ association meeting in February. Ardrey said he would stop trapping the deer after capturing six of them since the fall. (Photo by Wes Ferguson)
by WES FERGUSON
After years of contention and weeks of signature-gathering, Ruby Ranch residents are poised to ban the trapping of exotic deer and antelope in their subdivision.
Nearly 260 residents – representing about 80 percent of Ruby Ranch lot owners – have signed an amendment to prohibit the capture and relocation of exotic wildlife, and now the homeowners association is initiating the process to change its bylaws.
“It looks like we’ll be able to put a stop to deer trapping once and for all,” said Kevin Rodriguez, the homeowners association president. “We want to move as quickly as we can,” he added. “I will tell you this: I would assume that anybody who was deer trapping in Ruby Ranch has already stopped with all of this going on.”
Blackbuck antelope, with their “corkscrew” horns, axis deer with white spots, and other exotic wildlife have roamed the area since long before it became a deed-restricted neighborhood off FM 967 west of Buda. The ruminants are remnants of an old game reserve owned by Buda rancher Cecil Ruby, who died in 1993.
Unlike protections for white-tailed deer, however, the state of Texas does not regulate the hunting and trapping of nonnative species, and residents say trappers have depleted the neighborhood’s wildlife population.
“We used to have beautiful herds of blackbucks,” said Maureen O’Donnell-Hintz, a Ruby Ranch resident who formed a neighborhood wildlife committee to protect the deer more than a year ago. “We haven’t seen maybe a third of them. Somebody’s got to be trapping an awful lot of deer.”
O’Donnell-Hintz and other petition organizers say they have no plans to seek a similar ban against hunting. Though discharging a firearm violates the subdivision’s rules, residents hunt the exotic deer with bows and arrows.
“Hunters are picking off one or two at a time, and there’s not as many hunters as some would think,” O’Donnell-Hintz said.
One of the newest trappers on the block, Lonnie Ardrey, said he has captured six of the exotic deer since building his home in Ruby Ranch last fall. His state-of-the-art trap consists of a deer feeder surrounded by a tall wooden fence with a gate held open by magnets.
Ardrey monitors the trap from a video feed to his home computer, and when his game camera shows an exotic animal inside the fenced area, he can remotely demagnetize the gates so they swing shut. But now, he said, he will be looking for a new use for the fenced area in his backyard.
“I’ll live within the rules of the community,” he said. “If I had known it would have caused this, I wouldn’t have started.”
With tempers rising over his game trap, Ardrey has been the victim of vandalism in the past month. His stone-and-mortar mailbox was knocked down, and someone sprayed the word “THIEF” in black paint across his garage door three days after he was called one during a homeowners meeting in February.
“This was going to be something fun to do,” he said, noting that he did not sell the deer but transported them to his ranch in Llano.
He said trapping and transporting the deer was more humane than hunting them. This year, he said, he and his wife found a bloody arrow point, presumably from an exotic deer hunt, in his driveway.
“Whether you trap them or kill them, it’s still harvesting them,” he said.
Ruby Ranch resident Sonny Hollub, who has spearheaded the petition drive, said the next step in the trapping ban is to certify the signatures and file documentation with the Hays County Clerk.
Click here to read which exotic deer can be found at Ruby Ranch and how they came to live there.
