Results tagged “deer”

Many of you have likely already seen this YouTube video shot by Ephraim and Christy Smethers (and fair warning, it's graphic in the same way that many nature shows are) of a deer being attacked by a lion at the National Zoo yesterday. The deer, which had presumably wandered in to the Zoo from neighboring Rock Creek Park, managed to run inside the lion habitat, and the lions, being lions, went after the young animal like it was a tasty snack.

Written by DCist Contributor Lauren Evans

The baby animal cup continues to runneth over at the Smithsonian's National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va., as they announced today the July 16 birth of a female tufted deer fawn - the fourth species to give birth at the Zoo within the last week. Zookeepers have already started referring to this summer's explosion of births as a "baby boom" of endangered species.

The Washington Post has a story online about a deer that had to be put to sleep yesterday in Silver Spring. The deer, it seems, had been being chased by a dog, and in its efforts to flee, it first crashed through the front window of Greek Village Restaurant, and then later made its way peacefully inside a Giant Food grocery store, entering through the automatic door. The injured animal was eventually put to sleep once it was captured by animal control. The Post's headline? "Deer Rampage Ends in Silver Spring Supermarket." In the story itself, the frightened deer is alleged to have "ransacked" the greek restaurant, which would seem to mean that the Post believes this deer conducted a thorough inventory of the eatery and then robbed it. We're sure it was startling for patrons inside the restaurant, but "rampage" and "ransacked"? This is a deer we're talking about, right?

We've gotten enough emails about this at this point that we can report that a deer was injured in downtown Washington today, somewhere on M Street NW between 16th and 17th Streets, near the National Geographic headquarters. It happened just before 1 p.m.; one witness told us that he saw the deer run into the side of a van at 16th and M, and several others said they saw the animal being tranquilized by animal control medics closer to 17th. We'll update when we get word on how the deer is doing. There are tons of deer in Rock Creek Park, but we can't remember the last time one popped up in the middle of downtown. There does seem to be an extraordinary amount of deer activity on the roads this fall: just this morning NBC4 did a story warning drivers to be extra vigilant about looking out for deer.