Guess where I am now? pic.twitter.com/k9yHsJgzMg
— Downtown (@DowntownDeer) July 21, 2015
A downtown deer in Vancouver, British Columbia that had its own Twitter account was tragically killed by a car recently. Some would say it was bound to happen.
A deer running along busy city streets has a tendency to be a deer not for long. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened. For officials who warned the blacktailed deer’s habituation with people would endanger its safety, the sad event marked an inevitable end to a deer that captured the hearts of local residents.
It was the deer’s docile nature, often taking food out of people’s hands that made it the subject of photos all over social media and even sparked its own Twitter account.
It arrived in Stanley Park after swimming an inlet and spent the summer living off grass, shrubs and roses, according to the Vancouver Sun.
Although the park is fairly rugged, the deer stuck more and more to the most heavily travelled areas in order to take advantage of people who fed it.
“The deer had become habituated to people feeding and petting it. I want to emphasize how important it is for people to maintain an appropriate distance from wildlife such as deer, raccoons and coyotes. Contact with people can cause animals to become dependent and aggressive towards humans,” said Vancouver Park Board Biologist Nick Page said in a statement.
Realizing the deer’s continued habituation endangered its life, officials attempted to find a place to relocate it but were unsuccessfully before the deer met its untimely demise.
“Because the deer was clearly habituated to humans, simply relocating it to the wild would not have been successful. The deer would have either become a problem somewhere else or died due to being unable to fend for itself,” a statement said.
This steam clock is stupid. #Gastown pic.twitter.com/S0xaz7m89x
— Downtown (@DowntownDeer) July 21, 2015
