Surgery on deer is nearly impossible. They experience a stress phenomenon where the sheer amount of cortisone they release causes muscle death/paralysis. Unfortunately, mammalian hearts are just big complicated muscles; they almost always suffer a cardiac arrest.
It's a huge problem in wildlife shelters. They can only help fawns, and even then, release day is SO stressful because this myopathy can kick in when the team is trying to move them to their new forest.
Despite highly inaccurate Hollywood depictions, sedation takes 5-20 minutes to take effect. So unfortunately, no, that would not work, because they will experience that cortisone response (Capture Myopathy or Exertional Rhabdomyolysis) in that time frame.
i don’t think they would ever have a reason to given that it’s a wild deer. but i’m curious as to why this method wouldn’t circumvent cortisol release.
Because the stress will probably kick in as soon as they feel something shoot them/realize something's wrong as they start to feel woozy.
And scientists (especially wildlife biologists) would have had plenty of reasons to attempt to tranq deer in the past, considering they like any other animal often turn up injured or sick and wildlife rehab people would want to try and help them
White buffalo tranqd , neutered and tagged about 1700 bucks in Staten Island NY. I guess that process is faster that fixing this guy. Honestly if it's not causing him pain then no need to feel bad for him unless he's not allowed to play in other whitetail games.
There is one in my neighborhood this fall that has a very lame front leg. It had both my worry and sympathy until I saw it sprint. Riding on the wind at a full gallop.
I’ve been stressing TF out over one of our neighborhood does that injured her front leg pretty badly—car or fence accident, likely. It was gashed wiiide open & hanging at a really wonky angle. Rehabs near us won’t take deer in, so our options are “hope for the best” & “F&W will put it down for you if you call it in”.
This grand dame not only fully fended off a good-sized ‘yote in our neighbor’s front yard on just 3 legs with 1 danglydragging AND hugely preggars, but she birthed twins a week later, & has managed to keep them & herself fat, hale & healthy the last few weeks while lamed.
She’s gonna have a twistyturnyknobblekneed leg in the end if she survives, but hot damn if they aren’t just super impressive creatures sometimes <3
I don't think this is always true. The remainder of the twin probably didn't develop, or was absorbed. It's not like two entire adult deer taking up the space of one.
Yeah, for all it knows, it's perfectly normal. As long as it's not hurting them it's best to just leave it be, trying to do such an extensive surgery would likely cause more harm than good
In 5 years we killed 71 grey wolves because they MIGHT be a threat to livestock. many of the predators killed had not hurt livestock. And even if they had, America has plenty of food waste and livestock to go around for EVERYONE. The amount of food waste we have is CRAZY
We do this because we make money off of selling hunting licenses. There's no fucking point to this shit. People just want to pretend they can't go to Kroger and pick up some meat or you know eat a fucking vegetable.
It's the same in Europe, here farmers as usual make a huge fuss about single digits of wolves that have been spotted claiming danger to livestock etc.
Wolves are basically extinct in large portions of Europe even though they are not invasive.
Farmers somehow always get what they want and almost never get bad press for some reason, even though they are wrong every time.
Daily reminder that the most invasive species is humanity. It infiltrated every continent and biome, and even managed to leave the planet to destroy new environments. Get rid of them, and the rest of the wildlife resumes normal balanced life reeeeeal quick.
similar things in Africa where human herd cattles inside wilderness and then shoot/poison lions for going after their cattle. majority of these farmers don’t want coexistence with nature
And the really ironic part is those wolfs go to farms because we also destroyed enough wilderness theres really not much left for food in the wild anymore,
Most old growth forests in America are gone. many species are no where close to their pre colonization levels (buffalo for one, which had an estimated population of 60 million before colonization, they now have 400k in the wild.). House cats have also decimated small critter populations here which effects the rest food chain, and so much more.
Basically everything we do makes it harder for animals in the wild (especially predators), but then we act surprised when they come to our nearly limitless supply of food
Hunting for food is the most ethical source of meat. If you're buying from Kroger or any other grocery chain, you're almost certainly supporting insanely cruel factory farming processes. Wild game lives its life free. Death from a hunter's bullet or arrow is relatively humane, especially when compared to predation by other wild species.
They are. Deer are one of the main sources of food for wolves. There would be enough wolves if we would stop hunting them and killing them intentionally. We allow the deer to breed because it's profitable to sell hunting licenses
Deer breed a lot, but also, deer are comparatively visible animals for the general public. Most wild animals we might see are quite small (squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc.) and it may be hard to spot differences in them at typical distances. Deer are one of the few large animals we see frequently that aren't under human care (livestock). Major mutations or developmental differences may simply be easier to see on a large beast.
Yes! And at least in the US, hunters take disproportionately more bucks than does. There is a huge overpopulation problem in my state, deer culls to limit CWD are an annual practice, and doe tags are cheaper every year
Apparently if the pedicle (anchor point on the skull the antler grows from) becomes damaged, it can permanently affect how the antler grows, so both disease or injury can cause stuff like this.
And how that happens is an incredible mystery. The antlers are shed every year, so their bodies remember the antler being nicked or damaged in a hyper-specific spot…how?
Look up Michael Levin. The tldr is non neurons have electrical communication networks analogous to brain computation. The damage is probably stored as a memory like this
It’s not the antler getting damaged that does this, it’s the part where it grows out. It’s like if a tulip grows, the bulb is damaged, and when it’s replanted the next year, the new flower looks weird.
There's a hunting museum in Munich that has a room dedicated to all the weird antlers harvested by hunters. Both racks with way too many points as well as weirdly shaped ones.
What you’re seeing here is a developmental defect that almost certainly has nothing to do with inbreeding. Complicated shit that happens during development that can easily go awry. Also, inbreeding isn’t really an issue in wild deer populations, so I’m not sure where you’re getting all this.
Well, determining who gets breeding rights by fighting seems to be an issue when in a few years the same stag who keeps winning for a several years might be mounting his daughters... But they're prey / herd animals... their worst mutations likely get sorted out by nature in the form of a wolf or something if not other types of early death.
Just like this one. Based on where the legs are, they’ll have a hard time running from predators (which there might not be any depending on where they are) but ultimately… I don’t think they’ll be able to mate. The legs are in the way.
So the chances of the mutation being passed down are significantly less, even if the deer lives a full life.
It looks like the rack might be Atypical too as that one side is drastically different than the other, so depending, they may not be able to fight as well either and never gain the rights to mate.
Lots of them, high rate of breeding plus not a lot of predators to kill off the genetically weak (not to get all eugenicist) all mean a lot more mutations get through
It seems bothered by the extra legs so its probably aware of its handicap and decided to stay in more heavily human populated areas (which is where it is grazing in this video)
Probably, but i'm saying if he got this far he has got this, he grew into the challenge life gave him and made the best of it, honestly pretty inspiring
It appears to be a buck, but antlers aren't the end all be all to ID. Antlered doe are absolutely a real thing, like this lady right here.
Edit to add: chickens do it, too. Damage to the left ovary will cause a hen to grow the feathering & comb of a roo. At which point they also stop laying and start fighting, dancing & crowing.
Just another reason I find it so weird that anyone who hunts or farms could call any part of LGBTQ "unnatural". Like, bro, look around.
It's so natural, the biggest thing in my experience is that the farmers I know don't necessarily look for the vocabulary to describe what they see and just say whatever since the animal doesn't care.
There's loads of intersex, gay or any flavour of non binary animals, and you may not always know what the case is.
I know of a sheep that was thought to be a female lamb but grew to be built more like a ram, big with a chunky face and big, thick horns like a ram but shaped like a ewes. This sheep had no interest in rams or ewes, was mean as hell most of the time but was kept around for years, and stayed with the rams.
Then there's all the cases of the ram having no interest in ewes or trying to go for rams instead. And I've met several gay dogs too
I think the spirit of the idea is good. For a long time there was a movement about ‘being born gay’ (or transgender) because being gay (or trans) was (and still is for some people) viewed as a conscious choice and not a innate, natural variation of the human race.
While being compared to a weird deer or a chicken with a wonky ovary maybe isn’t the most flattering thing, highlighting the natural variations in the world and biology is one of the ways people have fought back against the ‘being gay is a choice’ rhetoric to show that being queer is 1) not a choice, and 2) normal and natural, the same way many animals exhibit gay or bisexual tendencies, or change sexes in their lifespan, or what have you.
If you take it as a 1:1 comparison, absolutely. To me, it's a matter of seeing so many variations and nuances that it seems pointless to put any kind of onus on these things.
For what is worth, I'm non-binary. That doesn't make my views unchallengeable, by any means, it just informs my viewpoint to some extent.
If this was a failed birth, that doe and the fawn should still be messy if it was recent enough for there to be no decay or trauma to the fawn. With the antlers, I think the OP is right.
Antlers, there are species of deer with females with antlers, there are genetic issues in some deer that can cause a female that normally wouldn’t have antlers to have antlers.
If it makes you feel any better, he appears to be taking care of himself, grazing and hanging out with other deer. They also don't realize that there is something wrong with them. Even though he's walking awkwardly to us he just sees it as getting where he needs to go.
Me too but geez if it's lived this long it could be integrated too deeply that it may put it at risk to get it removed. Poor thing though. Must have had a hard life dealing with all of that.
Maybe in this situation but in general no it’s not. That’s the whole point of wildlife rehabilitation centers. I live in the Midwest and have called them multiple times. Only time they ever put the sick animal down that I called about was because it was a crow with West Nile virus and couldn’t be helped.
You really think the govt is gonna waste money doing surgery on this deer? They’re basically a pest. They’ll just put it down, which is the right thing to do.
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u/Now-Thats-Podracing 15h ago
Honestly feel bad for the poor thing.