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Creeks in Pleasanton are dry and, according to residents of one neighborhood, animals are literally dying of thirst.
Early-morning walkers in Vintage Hills said two dead deer have been seen this week in the Bernal / Kottinger residential developments; one was a fawn.
“Wildlife are dying right within our city limits,” resident Helen Mumler wrote in a letter sent to Pleasanton Mayor Karla Brown and the members of the City Council Thursday.
“The deer, wild turkeys, coyotes and foxes are desperate for water right this moment,” she said. “The creek at the bottom of Touriga (Drive) is dried up.”
“As an animal lover, it breaks my heart to see the unprecedented hysteria of the wildlife scrambling past my house to a dry creek,” Mumler also wrote, adding that as many as 40 neighbors have expressed concern.
However, according to Pleasanton Police Department’s Lt. Brandon Stocking, their Animal Control department are not seeing wildlife deaths from dehydration.
After receiving Mumler’s email Thursday, Stocking contacted a game warden at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, who said “deer are very resilient and able to find what they need to survive.”
“(The warden) said even if the creek bed is dry deer will find a spring, and they get a majority of their hydration through the vegetation they eat,” Stocking relayed, adding that there are a number of springs in the Kottinger area.
Residents have tried to put kids’ plastic pools and buckets filled with water to help the animals.
“One scientist from Livermore Labs hand-carried a bucket down to a playground and keeps it filled,” Mumler recalled. She said another neighbor brought a plastic swimming pool for toddlers and filled it up for the animals.
In her email Friday morning to city officials, she expressed the urgency of the problem.
“This cannot wait for a council meeting,” she wrote. “Several of your residents here in the hills, including me, cried when we saw the desperate does running on Touriga Drive, hunting hysterically for water near the creek.”
“We need to do something quickly,” Mumler said Friday morning. “This is an affluent community and we need to step up.”
She offered city officials a number of ideas that could be implemented almost immediately, including borrowing or renting the large stainless steel livestock troughs from Alameda County Fairgrounds and having city employees and volunteers place and fill the troughs with water.
Bringing water to the animals, though, might be detrimental instead of helpful, Stocking explained.
The game warden said that providing water will lead to deer congregating, which can spread disease. It can also draw them into areas with more humans and vehicles, which can lead to them being hit.
“If you see a dead deer that was obviously not hit by a vehicle, it’s most likely from disease, not dehydration,” Stocking said.
