Two Sitka blacktail deer lucked out with a lift back to shore last week after they were seen struggling to swim by two Alaska Wildlife Troopers.
Troopers Kyle Fuege and Sergeant Mark Finses were returning to Ketchikan from a patrol in the nearby Ernest Sound when they spotted the deer floating in the waters of southeast Alaska's Inside Passage.
While deer are strong swimmers and have been known to swim up to 10 miles, these two were definitely in over their heads. They were 4 miles from any island, fighting a strong, mid-tide current and freezing cold waters.
As Finses explains in the video he took of the incident, which was posted on the Alaska Troopers Instagram page, "Out in the middle of the Clarence [Strait], they're in rough shape, like on their last leg."
According to Alaska Public Media, the troopers stopped their 33-foot patrol vessel about 300 feet from the deer and shut off the engines so they wouldn't spook or hurt the deer. In the video, the two deer seem to recognize that the troopers were there to help immediately and swim toward the boat with their ears pricked forward, swimming right up to the steps. The troopers then helped haul the deer the rest of the way on board.
The two deer immediately laid down in the boat, exhausted from their ordeal. They can be seen shivering on the boat as the troopers drive them to shore. The average water temperature in Ketchikan in October is 50.4 degrees Fahrenheit; humans swimming in water of that temperature can become unconscious from hypothermia in just 1 hour.
The troopers drop the deer off on shore and, at first, the two deer look to be having trouble walking, likely frozen stiff from their swim. As they begin to warm up, though, they shake themselves and slowly trot back into the trees.
"The deer ended up being completely okay," Freeman told Alaska Public Media.
The troopers, though they didn't have to get in the water themselves, didn't get off completely scot-free. "I'm soaked to the bone," Finses can be heard saying in the video. "I had to pick them up and bear hug them to get them off our deck and get them on the beach."
