January 17, 2022

A deer cannot know how impressed we all are.

64 comments:

Jamie said...

Holy doe!

Leland said...

And you thought reindeer couldn't fly.

Wince said...

Did the deer use a few quick backward motions of its front legs to gain additional forward momentum in flight?

Rory said...

They're quiet, too. Deer are within five feet of me most nights, but I never hear them.

Scot said...

Deer season would be much more interesting if deer could be taught how to use a rifle.

Cervid Lives Matter!

The Drill SGT said...

tough landing for those skinny legs

ReadDude said...

8' fences to keep out white-tail deer. That is what you need! BTW, I have been told that Bison can jump even higher!

That deer had the perfect spot there jumping over a road to get the extra distance on the downside!

Lance said...

Love that panicky feeling, when you take a jump thinking the backslope is flat but it falls away.

tim maguire said...

I expected something to be chasing it.

Butkus51 said...

Just inside Wisconsin out of Minny saw 2 deer running perpendicular to the road about a quarter mile away. I wasnt driving so I kept watching. They kept coming, eventually meeting the road about 50 feet in front of us. They both leaped so far I couldnt believe it. One twisted a little mid-air, ala Jordan and barely glanced the pickup in front of us and they both kept going.

So used to seeing deer just kind of hanging out. Never really knew how long their strides were and how high they got.

Butkus51 said...

someone alluded to the fact that deers dont have guns......but they have antlers and theyre fast.

https://youtu.be/v5pDPk4eOIA

Yancey Ward said...

Wild animals' physical abilities are jaw-dropping.

tim in vermont said...

"Deer season would be much more interesting if deer could be taught how to use a rifle."

In Vermont, about a month ago, there was a shootout over rights to a deer stand that left both hunters dead, so there's that.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

"A deer cannot know how impressed we all are."

Gary Larson was actually counting on that.

Gerda Sprinchorn said...

The video is an obvious fake. It was done with wires, a green screen, and CGI.

wendybar said...

Wow!!

Original Mike said...

Easy shot.

Big Mike said...

Usually deer won’t jump over something unless they can see their landing area. This one may have made a mistake, or was truly panicked.

Big Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

That was quite an impressive jump, perhaps matched by this bobcat.

Sydney said...

They are really hard to keep out of a garden for that very reason.

Static Ping said...

Deer do not know how high they can jump. Or at least that is a common comment I have heard from people who encounter them a lot. There are stories of deer getting themselves into or out of situations where the general human response is "How?"

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Too bad deer don't have the ball handling biological mechanisms, necessary to try for the NBA.

At least, that's the NBA side of the case, in a class action lawsuit, alleging discrimination.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Watch out, Olympians, if animals start to identify as human...

Andrew said...

I couldn't quite tell if that deer is a male-to-female trans, or female-to-male. Either way, I don't think it's fair.

rhhardin said...

That's a hold my beer deer.

DRP said...

While hunting I've seen a browsing doe jump from a standstill over a 6 foot chain link fence when startled. They're amazing animals. Also tasty.

gspencer said...

Higher than Willie Nelson (who in April will reach 89).

farmgirl said...

Yup- Tim.
Alburgh, I think.

Something very special about deer. Always a thrill to see them- in Springtime our road is filled w/their footprints, I think they play in the warming nighttime and possibly lick salt from the hard surfaces.

FullMoon said...

Some animals simply cannot resist showing off whenever there is a camera nearby.

R C Belaire said...

The commercial cherry orchards in Michigan are ringed with 10ft high fences. Even so, there will be an occasional deer inside.

Anita said...

As I was driving my son home from an appointment one morning about 8 years ago, we had to stop on the road to make way for a group of deer crossing from a field to a wooded area near our house. We paused for a moment in the rush of daily life to see the deer, one after one, performing magnificent leaps over the fences. Each one brought forth cries of amazement.

It remains one of my favorite memories with my son.

gadfly said...

What I see is a deer approaching a road running uphill only to make a leap over said road which was already occupied by another deer. I have experienced three frightened deer successfully leaping from high ground above the north side of Highway 54 in Waupaca County (one after another) over the hood of my vehicle while driving, but the flights were nowhere near as long or out-of-control as the one in this video. So my vote is for a fake video. Animals, whether with hooves or paws, jump while under total body control.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

This triggered a flashback. There's a stretch of country road on my route home that is similar terrain: to the left is a deep ravine behind a guard rail, and to the right is a hillock with another ravine behind.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer leaped in front of my car from the left. I had only an instant to observe before the collision, after which the air bag blocked my vision; but in that instant, I never saw the deer until it appeared airborne in front of me. Like it had run up the ravine side and leaped the guard rail in one smooth action.

I've driven that stretch hundreds of times since. Every time I see that ravine, I think, "Nah... Couldn't happen. The deer had to be standing at the top of the ravine, and I just didn't see him. He couldn't run up and leap like that. That's practically flying."

But in this video, that's precisely what the deer did. Practically flying.

LA_Bob said...

I didn't know deer are descended from flying squirrels...or is it the other way around?

Bruce Hayden said...

“8' fences to keep out white-tail deer. That is what you need! BTW, I have been told that Bison can jump even higher!”

But they can probably more easily just push the fence down. I do wonder though whether elk can jump even higher. They have massive hind quarters for bounding up hills. In MT, we have all three, though the bison are supposedly contained. Most often. Friend in MT has an elk problem. The elk like the hay and grain they try to feed their horses. Normal fencing doesn’t do much to keep the elk out. Get a couple of them leaning together on the fence, and you have a ton of force, and normal fences just disintegrate. The nice thing is that since we have bison in the county, it is easy to get bison-proof fencing. Ridiculous overkill, but necessary. The good part though is that the local elk herd comes in so close, that his wife can take hers out the kitchen window.

Back to elk jumping. When you head west on I-70 out of Denver, the highway flattens out around the Genesee/Lookout Mountain turnoff. Right after that, in the right (going west) is usually located one of the oldest bison herds in the country. They were established over a century ago. Part of the Denver Mountain Park system. Across the highway to the south is usually an elk herd, established the same time. I say “usually” here because occasionally the bison are moved into the elk enclosure, and the elk into an enclosure further to the south, away from the highway. They use a tunnel that runs under the highway - that I have probably driven over better than a thousand times, and didn’t notice. The bison have an inbreeding problem. The good news is that means no Brucellosis. You can guess at the bad. But the elk apparently don’t. The reason is that there is a companion elk herd that roams free around that area (my parents, and now youngest brother, often have it through their yard). Turns out that the inside herd stays put, inside the bison grade fence, but the outside herd doesn’t, occasionally popping over the fence to socialize with the inside herd.

gilbar said...

Deer are Satan's spawn. Deer exist to kill motorists (especially motorcyclists)
Some say i hold a grudge, 'cause of the damned deer that placed me in a brain damaged coma...
Damned Right i do

rcocean said...

I've seen deer bound up practically sheer cliffs. Something I thought only mountain goats could do.

Original Mike said...

"A deer cannot know how impressed we all are."

Nobody knows what the deer knows.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

gilbar said...
Deer are Satan's spawn. Deer exist to kill motorists (especially motorcyclists)
Some say i hold a grudge, 'cause of the damned deer that placed me in a brain damaged coma...
Damned Right i do

1/17/22, 1:52 PM

In 2010, I read an insurance industry article on car-deer collisions. The statistics said that in California (where I worked at the time), 1 car in 1,400 would hit a deer over the course of the car's "life".

In Michigan, where I've lived most of my life, it's 1 in 72. And in certain areas, it's higher. In my immediate family, I know of two dozen car-deer accidents. I've had 7, and I don't hold the record.

So I share your grudge; but at least none of us have been injured. You have my sympathies.

farmgirl said...

Gilbar- I’m sorry that’s how your injury happened!!
Deer do not have any good radar when it comes to traffic! Flighty creatures.

I dare to shyly add: you seem to have healed nicely- and I say that w/out dismissing the pain and trials that injury caused/causes you…

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh shoot. This is a Deer React video. Looks like Althouse has not cough on yet to the insidious click bait. 😉

Curious George said...

"R C Belaire said...
The commercial cherry orchards in Michigan are ringed with 10ft high fences. Even so, there will be an occasional deer inside."


My dad used to put 10' high fences around his northern WI garden. Couldn't stop 'em all. He used to get cut off hair from the local barber....that worked better.

gilbar said...

farmgirl said...
I dare to shyly add: you seem to have healed nicely- and I say that w/out dismissing the pain and trials that injury caused/causes you

thank you! And, i daily Thank GOD for how well i've recovered.
But, while i can think pretty well now; you should have seen me back then!


ps. i don't "Really Think" that deer are satan's spawn...
Deer are GOD's creatures, but there Sure are a LOT of them here in the midwest

Howard said...

I was driving a tiny Geo metro with my wife and two kids who were tweeners at the time when we hit a deer at night in a driving rainstorm on Hecker Pass, a two lane winding mountain road. I was rounding a curve to the right as the deer bounded down the mountain from the left into the road. I was able to avoid a direct hit and avoid a wet road spinout by gently turning away. She bounced off my driver door taking off the side view mirror and smashing the door so it couldn't open. No broken glass, just a thick street of deer snot on my window. The loud bang startled the family as I was the only one who saw it coming. We stopped and saw the deer ran off down the mountain.

madAsHell said...

Hold muh beer!! Watch this!!

mikee said...

Back in Rockville, MD, my manager was driving 55 on a highway when a buck leapt at his truck, impaling a fender with one antler. Stopping as rapidly as possible, my manager pulled the buck off his truck, leaving a 3 foot long, 2 inch wide scar of ripped metal over his wheel well. The deer, which he'd thought dead from the thrashing it took as the truck stopped, slowly stood up, shook itself once or twice, and hopped daintily off the road shoulder back into the suburban forest, ready to attempt murder once more on another unwary commuter.

CWJ said...

"Gary Larson was actually counting on that."

Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.

madAsHell said...

For ten years, I worked at the Boeing Developmental Center on the shores of the Duwamish river.

There were three buildings on the campus that were built separately, and then over time joined by glass connection hallways. The three connected buildings were organized in a U-shape, and this organization created a small park inside the U.

Ducks, and geese would gather in this park. In the early morning hours, a raccoon, or coyote would wander across the campus, and startle the water fowl. Inevitably, their escape route would fly toward the glass connecting hallways which were mostly transparent.

There were usually two outcomes: the birds broke their neck upon impact with the glass, or they went high-alpha, and blew ballast all over the window.

Good times!!

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

A deer ran in front of me while I was driving down SR202 near Snoqualmie Falls. The road is windy with a hairpin turn where it crosses Tokul Creek. Right after that hairpin turn, where a sane speed is about 30-mph, a deer ran in front of me, left to right. There's a guard rail on the left side of the road and a clear area just beyond that. I thought it must have come across the clear area, but after reading all these comments, it probably jumped over the guard rail before running across the road. No collision, but only because I was going relatively slowly after the hairpin turn.

James K said...

Some say i hold a grudge, 'cause of the damned deer that placed me in a brain damaged coma...
Damned Right i do


A friend of a friend was killed while driving when the deer leapt right into and through her windshield. Massive head injuries. Apparently deer are most active (and dangerous to drivers) in October-November during mating season, which was when this happened.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

madAsHell, I worked there too, in the 9-96 building (had to go to google maps to get the building number). The 9-96 building is about 40-ft from the Duwamish.

retail lawyer said...

I was riding a motorcycle in Great Basin Nat'l Park about 30 mph and I must have frightened a deer very high up on an embankment and it jumped very high and landed immediately in front of me but its hooves slipped on the pavement and it mercifully slid away before I hit it.

Vance said...

I think this is a great metaphor: the deer is the media, getting away from a story that paints Democrats in a bad light, like inflation.

madAsHell said...

Mike of Snoqualmie -

For some odd reason.....I knew you would know about the 9-90, 9-96 and 9-98 buildings, and the park in the middle.

When I was there, you could walk down the north stairway of the 9-96, and you could see daylight between the floors. The soil by the river is very soft.

I thought those buildings were closed after the 2002 Nisqually quake, but maybe not.......

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

They were reopened. We started working in 9-96 buildings around 2012 and into 2017 when we moved to the 9-98 building. When I was there they'd added a cafeteria in the middle of the quad.

I was working in the Kent Space Center when the earthquake happened. The 18-04/18-05 buildings were closed for nearly a week. Trying to get home was a traffic nightmare.

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

Since I generally do what everyone else does, I'll relate a story.

In my old, light 1970's Datsun B210 I hit a deer at about 45mph outside of Morrison, CO, and kept going for about 100 feet before I turned back to see what was up; there were already two guys loading the dead deer into a pickup. The car just got a dented hood.

The End.

PS: The video was shot in India:

"Before this, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Parveen Kaswan shared a video of a herd of deer seen enthusiastically leaping out to freedom. The herd was released as part of the forest department’s prey base augmentation programme."

Sounds tasty.

Mea Sententia said...

Ack!! Hyoomans!! Must FLEEEE!!!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I have never hit a deer. Realizing I may be jinxing myself.

Speaking of Jinx, I'm up to episode 5. So far, I believe people who cross Durst are jinxed, not the murderer himself. Not one bit.

I couldn't help noticing a similarity in the Texas trial of Durst and OJ Simpson trial in California. In both cases the defense was allowed to trot out all kinds of speculation and present any evidence to back it up while the prosecution could only present to the jury their theory as best tied to the evidence. And then they tell the jury not to speculate theories not in evidence. If I had been in that jury room, I would have been asking what happened to the head? how come this butcher was more diligent to hide the head?

Scot said...

I live near Duke Forest, where there are too many deer. So many dillemae. The deer chew the trees. Is better to preserve the forest or the deer? The herd is sickly because they lack food (so they chew the trees). Is better to thin the herd, or let it suffer from hunger? How about introducing a pack of Carolina Red Wolves? No no no, bad for property values. Plus the deer would all run away & Fifi would go missing.

The forest management folks started a program for bow hunters to reduce the herd. The deer hugger v. tree hugger conflict is amusing.

Ralph L said...

One of my Balinese cats 35 years ago would leap onto a narrow ledge above the front door. He could also turn around inside a mailbox.

Bill AKA motorave said...

Bruce Haden @1:52 I hit one of those elk on a Ducati motorcycle at about 50 mph there merging onto the highway. Hit it with my face did much damage to me not much to the bike. Was about 26 years ago.

The Drill SGT said...

no matter how fast those deer look, I've seen video of bears running down deer for dinner.