CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- The man arrested for obstruction of justice by Chesterfield County Police after officers came to his house to seize his camel and he drove off with the animal in his trailer, previously had ten non-native deer confiscated by the state.
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries confirmed that Stanley Holmes did not have the appropriate permit to possess the fallow deer so they were confiscated by the department in March of 2011.
CBS 6’s Mark Holmberg talked to Holmes right after the deer were seized in 2011.
Holmes told Holmberg, “it broke my heart,” when the animals were seized.
Wildlife officials said Holmes told them he got the deer at the same time he got his camel, Jacob.
CBS 6 previously reported Holmes told her he obtained the camel on Craigslist.
Chesterfield County Police said they seized the camel on May 12 of this year because it was underweight.
“It didn’t seem like he was mistreating any of his animals when we were there four years ago,” Lieutenant Scott Naff with the Virginia Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries, said.
Lieutenant Naff was one of the conservation officers who confiscated the deer in 2011.
“Only permitted people can have captive deer,” Naff, said.
The Metro Richmond Zoo has several fallow deer.
People can actually go to the zoo and feed them.
But the zoo has a permit to have the deer, something wildlife officials said Holmes did not have.
“Captive deer have a lot of diseases associated with them that we try to keep away from our native deer population,” Naff, said.
Among those diseases are tuberculosis, which can be passed to humans, and chronic wasting disease, which kills native deer.
“Hunting is a very large part of the heritage within Virginia, it’s a cultural thing, we want to have healthy wildlife populations in Virginia,” Glen Askins with the VDGIF, said.
CBS 6 reached out to Holmes through his son for comment, but never heard from him.
Holmes told Mark Holmberg in 2011 that “George Washington brought them over and put them on Mount Vernon and raised them as livestock, and it’s proven by the USDA that fallow deer do not get chronic wasting disease period.”
Wildlife officials said Holmes got the deer to harvest venison.
Holmes was never charged with anything, and the deer were euthanized so a biologist could test for disease.
