Thread: Strange Behavior in the Bush: Seeking Insight on a Peculiar Deer Encounter

Hey everyone,

I hope you're all doing well. I've got a question about something I saw in the bush last week.

I was out bush stalking when I stumbled upon a deer doing some strange stuff. It was rolling around on its back, kicking its back legs against a tree, and its neck and head were twisted back in an odd way. At first, I thought maybe it was just trying to get up, but the neck thing threw me off.

I've asked around, but no one seems to have any answers.

Has anyone else seen something like this or have any idea what might have been going on?

Thanks, and looking forward to your thoughts.

Did you shoot it?

A few years ago a mate of mine shot one after Watching do some very similar things, we had a close look at it and it had a lot of hair missing like it had been scratching/rubbing it off, especially on its legs. He never looked closely at the organs but decided no to eat the meat. Did a little bit of research and I think we decided it was probably jones disease from memory. This was the tauranga side of the kaimais

Originally Posted by Shearer

Did you shoot it?

Yeah

Were there any ticks on it?

Originally Posted by hebe

Were there any ticks on it?

Nah I didn't see any ticks

Originally Posted by TakaRat

Yeah

Did it seem in good health otherwise?

@TakaRat
Did you take any photos you could post here ?
Any chance it might have eaten 1080 ?

Did it look like this ?
https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....s-mfdc0101.jpg

Originally Posted by Shearer

Did it seem in good health otherwise?

Yeah, the Deer looked healthy. I didn't look at its organs though

Originally Posted by 30.06king

@TakaRat
Did you take any photos you could post here ?
Any chance it might have eaten 1080 ?

Did it look like this ?
https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....s-mfdc0101.jpg

I was thinking that it could have been 1080 too at the time. However, I had a look online and the area that I was in had no mention of 1080 on the DOC website

Originally Posted by TakaRat

I was thinking that it could have been 1080 too at the time. However, I had a look online and the area that I was in had no mention of 1080 on the DOC website

@TakaRat
Any photos ?

Originally Posted by 30.06king

@TakaRat
Any photos ?

Unfortunately I don't have any photos I could share on here

Originally Posted by TakaRat

Unfortunately I don't have any photos I could share on here

@TakaRat
OK. Did it look like the stag in the pic I put the link to above ?

Originally Posted by TakaRat

Yeah, the Deer looked healthy. I didn't look at its organs though

The first thing I do is check the organs, it can tell you if the deer is healthy or not.

If offals have spots I would throw it.

Originally Posted by 30.06king

@TakaRat
OK. Did it look like the stag in the pic I put the link to above ?

Somewhat, I can't tell if the stag has a bulge on its neck though.

The deer didn't have a bulge and looked as if it was kinda using a wallow. However there was no wallow so it was lying on its back/side kinda rubbing and kicking the tree like it was trying to get up.

I'm fairly certain that if it was indeed rubbing into the ground for whatever reason it would have sensed me and tried to escape as I made a fair amount of noise when I came around the corner.