- May 15, 2024
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A young male deer mauled a man who was gardening in his Palm Coast yard on Oct. 5, leading local law enforcement and Florida Fish and Wildlife staff to catch the deer and kill it.
A law enforcement officer's camera footage shows law enforcement officers roping the struggling deer to a telephone pole in the suburban front yard and slitting its throat, then waiting for approximately 15 minutes while it struggled and bled on the lawn in front of multiple witnesses before one officer shot it in the upper body. It jumped one more time before dying. Multiple residents told the Observer that they were upset by the manner in which the deer was killed. (The body camera footage — which is graphic — can be viewed HERE.)
Residents in the Palm Coast neighborhood where the attack occurred said in social media posts that the young deer was well known in the neighborhood as "Baboo."
People had complained about it before. One man spoke to Sheriff's Office deputies on Oct. 1, just days before the attack‚ telling deputies that the deer was living in a local family's home and backyard as a pet, that it playfully jumped at people and that he was concerned it was dangerous, and that he had already contacted FWC multiple times, according to FCSO records.
He said he contacted the Sheriff's Office after he saw it start walking into a local house. FCSO deputies responded but said that wildlife problems were under FWC's purview.
Deer are rarely aggressive toward humans, but bucks can become aggressively territorial during the rutting season, according to a 2009 academic article on a series of deer attacks at the Southern University of Illinois. The rutting season for whitetail deer runs from October through December. A 2019 report on a fatal deer attack in Europe notes that deer that attacked during rutting season often had early experiences with humans and might have "imprinted" on humans during a critical developmental period, then viewed humans as rivals.
A neighbor of the Palm Coast attack victim had called 911 at 9:39 a.m. on Oct. 5, telling a dispatcher that the buck attacked the victim while he was bent forward in his garden, and that it had tried to gore the caller as well, according to emergency dispatch notes.
The caller told the dispatcher that the victim's wife was taking him for emergency medical treatment.
Meanwhile, the deer was "refusing to leave the area" of the attack in the first block of Cool Water Court, according to emergency dispatch notes.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission dispatched staff to find and kill the deer at around 10:14 a.m., according to dispatch notes, but a Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputy arrived first.
"FWC advised me to put it down if I get on scene first, but not to shoot it in the head, as it will need to be tested," a responding FCSO deputy wrote in a report.
Body camera footage shows the deer walk up to a law enforcement officer who arrived at the scene with a catch pole.
"He's not afraid of us at all," the officer remarked as he tried to slip the noose of the catch pole around the deer's neck.
When one officer got the catch pole around the animal’s neck, another officer helped restrain the animal by looping a rope around its hind limbs and tying it to a telephone pole.
"This is what happens when people feed deer around here," the officer said while holding the deer as the deputy cut its throat. "Now we've got to put a deer down because somebody wants to feed them."
The bleeding animal continued to fight.
"The sad part is, we've got to make sure there's nothing wrong inside, so that's why we can't shoot him in the head," the officer said as the injured animal folded to the ground.
At one point, talking to watching neighbors while restraining the deer, the officer said he wondered if the young deer might have been trying to play with the victim, not attack him.
"But that's the problem, you know — when a deer plays, it's different than me and you playing," the officer said. "They can be very dangerous, and people feeding them — this is what happens."
The bleeding deer repeatedly jumped and fought against the ropes over the next 15 minutes. One woman watching from a doorway suggested the officers tranquilize the deer. They replied that they didn't have tranquilizers. An officer shot the deer about 20 minutes after offices arrived at the scene.
An FWC spokeswoman told the Observer in an email that the deer "was humanely euthanized after it did not retreat, and was sent to Gainesville for testing." The FWC had not responded to the Observer's inquiries about the manner in which the deer was killed as of the Observer's publication time.
The Palm Coast man who was attacked in his yard has since been released from medical treatment, according to the FWC.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
