Everyone knows Mother Nature can be brutal, but she also finds new ways to surprise us all the time. That's certainly proven with this piece of security camera footage from a Wisconsin County Park. As the video begins, it appears to be an ordinary, quiet day in nature until a red-tailed hawk suddenly drops out of the sky and lands on a rabbit hidden in the grass with a solid thud. Fortunately, there's audio with this video, and after only a few seconds the rabbit starts to squeal in panic and pain after realizing it has just been caught by a predator. Unbelievably, a whitetail doe runs full speed into the frame seconds later, cuts a circle around the hawk, and starts to pummel the bird of prey with her hooves.
Near the bottom of the frame, the rabbit beats a hasty retreat out of the area after being given a remarkable second chance at life. Meanwhile, the doe continues her vicious assault on the hawk for nearly three minutes, at one point flipping it up into the air. She continues to beat the hawk until it finally stops moving. Even then, she goes back in several times to take several more shots at the bird while it's down. It's an unbelievable attack we might not have believed were there not video to prove it.
We simply never expected this level of viciousness out of a deer. That doe wanted to make sure that hawk was dead. The hawk was later found by the park's operations manager who got curious and checked the security camera footage. We might not have ever known what happened had the camera not been there to catch it all on video.
It's highly unlikely the deer knew it was coming to the aid of a rabbit. Nature isn't a Disney movie. The most likely explanation for this strange incident is that the rabbit's screams closely resemble those of a fawn in distress. This deer's motherly instincts kicked in and went into overdrive, regardless of the fact there was not a fawn in trouble. In any case, it's a fascinating and surprising scene we never would have seen if not for a security camera in the park. It makes us wonder how often stuff like this happens in nature that we don't see?
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