I don’t know about you, but I find there’s something truly magical when it comes to spotting animals roaming their natural habitat.
Of course, expansion projects the world over mean humans are encroaching more and more onto lands certain animal species have called home for millions of years, resulting in some of us living in areas where we see wild animals regularly.
The residents of Kenora, Canada certainly do. They’ve become accustomed to the friendly deer who regularly frequent their neighborhoods, with one resident, Lee-Ann Carver, even having named a few of them.
One such deer is Carrot, who Lee-Ann first sighted three-years ago, when he was being looked after by a buck she named Potato.
Carrot has continued to come back to visit Kenora, only this year, his return was somewhat marred. Lee-Ann first realized there was a problem when her husband came into the house in tears.
Lee-Ann went outside to see Carrot with an arrow through his head. He’d obviously had a brush with a hunter, and managed to survive by the grace of a couple of inches.
As per reports, the arrow was embedded between his antlers, just behind the side of his head. Lee-Ann, who works as a wildlife photographer, believes it was fired by someone in a window or on a balcony in a residential area.
“My understanding from the hunters who have been writing me, it’s a carbon arrow, a lethal arrow for hunting,” she said. “It would come out of a crossbow.”
Lee-Ann initially stated her belief that attempting to remove the arrow might cause severe bleeding or nerve damage, but she later updated folk to say it had been taken out of Carrot’s head.
The deer was cared for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, who removed the bolt and injected Carrot with antibiotics. He was up and walking just a few hours later.
Lee Ann wrote: “He licked my familiar hands and I felt his remembrance race through my glad, glad heart.
“I am almost certain I drove the team crazy talking to Carrot, but I was trying to give him something to hold onto that he trusted; something to call him back home. I would say his name and he would stop walking and turn his eyes to me.”
Lee-Ann has described Carrot’s shooting as an “act of animal cruelty”, though bylaws in the City of Kenora and the City of Thunder Bay make it legal to discharge a crossbow.
This makes me so upset. Why can’t people just let animals be? Carrot wasn’t hurting anyone!
Please, share this article on Facebook if you want to wish this deer a speedy and safe recovery, and to thank Lee-Ann for her work in saving him.