An overly-friendly deer had to be escorted back into the wild by police who shut a road and scared it off with a siren, after it followed a young boy home and wouldn’t leave him alone.
Colt Strachan, 9, had been playing in the woods near Rothienorman when the female deer started following him.
Despite trying to get away from the animal, Colt’s new companion was insistent, and even once Colt’s mum Leanne arrived, it still wouldn’t leave his side.
After it closely trailed the mother and son all the way back from the woods to their home, a confused Leanne called up The New Arc animal rescue centre for help.
‘This deer was just besotted with him’
Leanne said: “Colt FaceTimed me to say there was a deer following some people, but it had taken a liking to him and he was in a bit of a panic, because he had never been approached by a deer before.
“We ran down to find him, and sure enough this deer was just besotted with him.
“I tried to distract it and get between it and Colt so he could get away, but it just wouldn’t go away.
“Every time Colt tried to walk off, it was trying to go under my arms to get to him.”
Colt said: “She was sniffing my bike when I put it down, and as soon as I took a step she followed.
“She was getting right in my face, and sniffing me. I felt a bit confused, and grossed out.”
Leanne continued: “Nothing was scaring it off, I tried flapping my jacket and everything, but in the end I thought well we’ll just have to walk off, it surely won’t follow us home.
“But it did, all the way through the streets, and we thought what are we going to do with it now?”
Help arrives, but concerns raised for deer’s welfare
Leanne corralled the deer safely into a fenced-off garden, and got in touch with The New Arc’s founder Keith Marley, who arrived and then summoned the police for help.
She continued: “Keith came out and a police escort was called to get the deer up the road, they had to use their siren and lights to scare it away from us.”
Keith said he believes the animal’s overly-familiar behaviour around humans is due to it being hand-reared.
And he suspects it was released into the wild after spending too much time away from its natural environment, leaving it with an unnatural attachment to people that he fears could lead to trouble.
He said: “Somebody has raised it, that’s for sure, and it was released, either intentionally or unintentionally.
“People keep taking wild animals on and raising them themselves, and treating them as pets.
“We get cases every year with a variety of animals, from rabbits to squirrels to foxes to birds.
“It’s a common one at this time of year, people go away on their holidays and release these animals, thinking oh, they’re wild animals, they’ll sort themselves out.
“But they won’t, because they’re humanised, and they believe they’ll be fed by people.
“I think this one was accustomed to hanging about people and people looking after it.
“The problem now is it could follow someone home and end up in a car accident, or there could be someone out walking a dog and the dog isn’t friendly to deer.”
‘Every year we get stuck with animals that have been with people for too long’
Keith said with the help of the police, the deer was lured out of Rothienorman and into a field where they could close a fence behind it, and they thought that was the end of the matter.
“But it was back in Rothienorman later that day, so it’s really an accident waiting to happen,” he said.
Keith continued: “It’s all due to the irresponsible person who took the deer in in the first place, as they could have handed it to a rescue centre.
“If somebody takes in an animal overnight, we can pick it up the next day, no problem, and eventually get them back into the wild again.
“But every year we get stuck with animals that have been with people for too long — the damage is done, and you can’t undo it.
“On the face of it, it’s a cute story, but when you look at it in depth there’s a lot more to it than that, and it comes down to people being irresponsible and other people needing to pick up the pieces of their irresponsible actions.”
You can phone The New Arc for help with wild animals in need on 0796 225 3867.
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