Loving llama not as endearing after being shot -11/22/95-BY DENNIS McCANN
Well, sure it's funny, darned funny. At first.
Some orange-clad Mr. Magoo goes hunting for venison but instead he bags a 7-foot llama feeding in a field.
What the hell was he thinking, that he'd found the Wilt Chamberlain of white-tailed deer? The bizarre case of mistaken identity on the opening day of deer season drew only a mention in the news but you know most of those who saw or heard it shook their heads and laughed.
"It is funny if a guy can mistake a llama for a deer," granted Kelly Long of Wittenberg, in Shawano County.
"But it's not funny if you're the guy who owns the llama. (And) what about the llama?
"Right now, it's like he's crying when you go out there."
Fernando Llama, as he is known, has so far survived the bullet that struck him in the right shoulder early Saturday. But the animal that was a family pet docile, gentle, inquisitive, like a big goat, really before the shooting is a frightened and cranky patient now, spitting, kicking and generally resisting efforts to help him.
Before, Long said, he could put a carrot between his teeth and Fernando would take it. Now he can't get near him.
"He's still alive (but) at this point the vet says there's no guarantee he's going to live. The llama has lost quite a bit of blood. If the llama dies, that will be the reason.
"(And) he's been getting progressively meaner. Even if he does live through it, I don't think we'll be able to handle him. And if we can't handle him, then what do we do? They don't have a wayward home for llamas."
The Longs have had Fernando for four years. Llamas are more common in Wisconsin now but it seemed an exotic pet then, and Long had always wondered what they were like.
Friendly, it turned out. Fernando posed for pictures with Long's daughter and let kids pet him.
Perhaps caught up in the excitement and activity of opening morning, Fernando got over the fence on Long's land and was in a neighbor's field when a man hunting there shot him from about 100 yards. Based on the neighbor's account, Long said the shooter didn't even pursue the wounded animal. Another member of the hunting party found him, spitting and bleeding, in the woods.
"The landowner called me, said this guy is really upset. Well, he should be upset. The landowner told me (the hunter) is about 70 years old and has bad eyesight. I don't feel sorry for the guy. If he has bad eyesight, he shouldn't be hunting.
"And like I said, no contact at all with the guy who shot it. At 70 years old, experience should tell you, you should come forward and admit it, other than the fact that people are going to tease you for the rest of your life."
Long and his family hunt, so he's not mad at hunters. But he wonders about an armed man who could stand not all that far from Long's house and not recognize a llama at 100 paces.
A big buck might reach 250 pounds, he said. Fernando was 450 pounds, nearly 5 feet at the shoulders and a few feet taller than that with his head up. He was brown and white, sure, but had long hair and wore a halter.
"What's next? Black and white cattle? A llama looks as much like a deer as a cow does," Long said.
"He looks more like a big stuffed toy than a deer. What do I have to have, a picture on a corner post (that says) this is a cow, this is a llama?'"
Apparently so. Before Saturday, though, that would have been a funny question.
Copyright 1995 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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