Photo by Pablo Maurer

It’s one thing to see a dead deer in Rock Creek Park or some of the city’s surrounding suburbs. But on 14th Street?

That’s what happened yesterday morning, when residents heading to brunch caught glimpse of the carcass of a small buck in front of Cork Wine Bar. Police tape was placed around the deer—check out a close-up image here—before its body was carted off by the D.C. Department of Public Works at 3:30 p.m. (Had the deer been alive, the D.C. Department of Health would have been responsible for retrieving it.)

How exactly the buck made it down to 14th Street from Rock Creek Park remains a mystery, as does the cause of its untimely death. According to an spokesman, MPD has no record of a car accident that may have been the cause of the deer’s demise. An employee at nearby Peregrine Espresso was similarly at a loss, saying only that the deer was there before the coffee shop opened for the day.

The deer population in Rock Creek Park has long been a concern, and earlier this year the National Park Service announced that it would start killing off deer any way it could—including shooting them. And though 14th Street is a ways away from where the deer usually spent its time, this wouldn’t be the first incident in which a deer wandered into the city—in January, a deer crashed through the window of the Washington Highlands Library.