Officials from the New Canaan Land Trust say they’re taking steps to widen a walking trail near Irwin Park, after deer who had funneled into a narrow portion of it reportedly “attacked” several people last week. Conceived about one decade ago as part of the town’s expanding “greenlink,” the trail allows Irwin visitors who continue north along a sidewalk on Weed Street to walk through the woods and into the back of the New Canaan Nature Center property.
Yet screening planting for neighbors of the trail has encroached on the accessway through the area, creating a stretch of very narrow passage where, last Thursday, at least one of two deer appeared to have panicked when confronted by people walking the trail, according to Animal Control Officer Allyson Halm. “It sounds to me like the deer was trapped and panicked,” Halm said. Police received seven reports of confrontations between the panic-stricken deer and walkers trying to pass, including one case where the doe got up on her hind legs and pommelled a woman with her hooves, causing bruises, Halm said. Halm said when she went to the area Thursday to investigate, she saw a doe and a younger deer, perhaps one year old, and added that there may have been a fawn in the area that she didn’t see, though the newborn deer was not on the narrow trail itself.
