Police used Taser to help free deer tangled in dead rival's antlers

The call to South Lake Minnetonka police in Minnesota was about two male deer fighting, but beyond that, the details were not quite the usual. At about 8:30am on Sunday, the resident of a home near Freeman Park in Shorewood called police about two bucks with their antlers tightly locked together in a nearby wooded area. One was thrashing wildly in a seemingly hopeless effort to free itself. The other one was dead.

Officer Ricky Syhre said it was a rare sight. “They must have been stuck together like that for hours,” he said. Syhre and fellow officer John Wareham pondered their options, even contacting local wildlife agencies for tips on how they might safely untangle the bucks. “It was kicking around. We didn’t want any residents to get hurt. We didn’t want the deer to get hurt,” Syhre said. They decided to use a Taser on the struggling buck.
Wareham fired his Taser at it, the animal fell to the ground, and residents standing by used small chain saws to quickly cut off one of its antlers, freeing it. When the deer came to, it ran off. Lt. Jackie Glaser, who works in the west metro area of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said dueling bucks do occasionally become antler-locked. The bucks may have become territorial about the wooded area and scuffled, Glaser said.

While most bucks shed their antlers after the fall rut, some retain theirs through late winter and even into spring, she said. Glaser said it appears that the officers used the best approach possible, because they were able to save the live buck. “It is very rare we find one dead and one alive,” she said. In most situations involving tangled bucks, they are found locked together dead, she said. Officers are trained to use Tasers on animals, but rarely do they have to do so, Syhre said. “Doesn’t happen every day that you would [Taser] a deer,” he said.
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