This deer was close to death when these fishermen intervened.
Make no mistake, deer are prey animals and they are often pursued by a bevy of natural predators in the wild. Every so often, domestic animals can cause problems for deer. That's what happens in today's video. These fishermen were simply hoping to catch some muskie when they hear a bunch of dogs barking.
It turns out the dogs are hot on the heels of a young whitetail buck. In an amazing coincidence, the young buck has just reached the stream at the same time as the kayakers.
Watch as the fishermen frighten the deer away and save this deer from what was almost certainly going to be a slow and painful death in the teeth of a domestic animal.
Unless it is in a hunting capacity, no one wants to see a bunch of dogs chasing deer. It can be a disheartening experience if the dogs happen to chase a deer past you while you're hunting. I had that happen to me once here in Michigan. It appears this chase may have happened in late November or early December when the rut was still going on. This poor buck was probably already run down before getting into a life-or-death situation with a bunch of canines.
From the looks of things, it appears the kayakers arrived only minutes before that buck would have died. He appeared to be completely out of energy and exhausted. It's why he didn't immediately flee upon encountering humans. He needed a few minutes to recover on the riverbank before finally making his exit.
We just hope the dogs headed home after that and didn't chase anymore deer. As the fishermen noted, this buck will probably have a nice rack given a few more years. Good job on giving this buck a second chance guys!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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