The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources rescued a deer that caught its antler in a hammock.
“Yeah, we received a call yesterday about a deer that was tangled in a hammock up in Woodland Hills, and we get calls like that every once in a while and so we responded immediately. It actually went really simple. The antler was so, kind of entwined the hammock that we didn’t feel like we could cut the hammock very easily. It was just much easier to cut the one antler off. So we had several of us and we just kind of held the deer down as gently as we could and cut the antler off, and it ran off so it worked out really well,” said Scott Root from the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR).
Most cases don’t go as smoothly as this deer, as the DWR usually deals with big game animals like moose, bears and cougars.
The wildlife resources team used a lariat, a type of ranch rope that falls off of the deer’s leg as it runs.
“The antler is just dead bone this time of year; they naturally just fall off in a couple of months. The deer ran off healthy and we’re excited that one didn’t take too long,” said DWR Regional Manager Riley Peck.
Kevin Schindler, the property owner, called in for help for the tangled dear. “We’ve had that hammock there for five years, and unfortunately I intended to take it down yesterday. Yeah, kind of a fluke. Glad he’s free and hope he’s doing okay.”
You can learn more at wildawareutah.org about what to do when encountering different types of animals.
