For most people who live in the U.S., seeing groups of white-tailed deer meandering around during dusk is a common sight. Deer are plentiful in almost every state and are a regular piece of the fauna for woods and fields. Even with them being so common, there is still something magical about seeing them, isn’t there?
Maybe it’s their shyness and timidity.
Because deer are such “prey animals,” they are usually extraordinarily skittish and never allow humans (or any animal, for that matter) to get close to them. When we see them, it’s usually while driving home late at night or when passing a field at dusk.
One man found a deer who was acting differently than any he had ever seen.
In New Jersey, one man saw a creature in his backyard that he had never seen before! While he was used to seeing deer, he wasn’t ready for the skinny and furry animal with the oddest shaped head to wander into his backyard.
Getting a closer look, the man realized that the “strange animal” was actually a young buck!
The reason the deer looked so odd from a distance was that he had a large object covering his whole head! The object seemed to be a large glass bowl, and the buck’s entire head was shoved in it.
The large “helmet” had caused some serious issues for the deer.
Because deer are so skittish, they rejected any of their herd that didn’t look normal. Wearing a glass bowl on your head is a great way to get kicked out of family grazing time! The deer was probably malnourished and thirsty because he couldn’t get any food or water.
If this young deer was going to be saved, the man needed to act fast.
Calling the MCSPCA and the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, they got a plan in place to save the buck. The tracked and found the buck (which isn’t hard to do when you have a bowl on your head). Once found, they sedated him and got to work.
They believed the glass bowl was trash that had filled up with water, an inviting place for a deer to drink from!
When they examined the deer, they could tell it was in serious trouble.
The glass bowl was removed, which turned out to be a light fixture cover, which probably had been filled with water the deer tried to drink,” the MCSPCA wrote on Facebook. “The buck was dehydrated from four days without food and water, and had a couple of scrapes probably from the poor visibility, but was able to get up and walk away after we cleaned him up and the sedative had worn off.”
Letting it get up, they released it back into the wild.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the story.
A day or so later, they got another call of a deer that was stumbling about and looking to be in bad shape. It had to have been the “bowl deer”! The MCSPCA found it, and, sure enough, it was the same one. Turns out, it was already severely dehydrated when they found it the first time and was now about to die.
Thankfully, they were able to get it the care it needed.
With another round of fluids and a much lighter head, the deer was able to recover and rejoin his family!
“The Monmouth County SPCA has been told that there is no longer a single deer feeding,” the press release stated, “so it is happily assumed that he has rejoined his herd.” – The Dodo
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