Housewife Faces Prison, Fine for Piercing Ears of Baby Deer

Bettie Phillips thought the zircon-studded earrings she put on a baby deer were fashionable.

Police said it was criminal.

Phillips, 54, of Hiddenite, N.C., was charged with animal cruelty and illegally possessing a wild animal after officers found the fawn in the back of her four-wheel-drive vehicle Sunday with cross-shaped earrings in its pierced ears.

She said she rescued the fawn from a busy road on July 3 as she drove to Harrisonburg to visit her daughter. Later that day, she said, she pierced its ears by hand, pushing the posts of the two earrings through the flesh.

The 2-month-old deer was seized and taken to a wildlife center, its ears inflamed and infected. Antibiotics were used to treat the mild infection.

“I thought it would be pretty,” Phillips said Thursday. “You can get a little kid’s ears pierced. What’s the difference between a person’s and a baby deer’s?”

The housewife could get up to a year in jail and $3,000 in fines.

“We’re pretty used to the concept of people who think fawns are cute and want to adopt them. However, earrings is a totally new one on us,” said Ned Gentz, chief veterinarian at the wildlife center.

“Just when you think you’ve been dealing with the issues of human interaction with wildlife for long enough that you’ve seen it all, somebody surprises you.”

Phillips said she had been treating the animal’s ears with peroxide to prevent infection.

She plans to represent herself in court at a hearing Sept. 16.