Crew hoping to catch lobsters 5 miles offshore in Maine instead finds a swimming deer
A lobster boat crew brought in an unexpected catch of the day on Monday.
Ren Dorr, one of the men on the boat, told the Bangor Daily News he and the other crew members were setting traps that morning off the coast of Harrington, Maine.
Dorr wrote on Facebook that they were 5 miles out when they saw a deer swimming and getting pulled farther out.
He told the Bangor Daily News he thinks the deer was trying to swim to an island and couldn’t see — or it got caught in a current and was pulled out.
“He was just kind of going with the flow,” he told the news outlet. “He wasn’t trying to fight it or swim with it. He was just kind of floating along.”
Dorr wrote on Facebook that he “couldn’t let the poor guy suffer and drown” so the crew brought the deer aboard.
They then sailed 30 minutes to give him a ride to a beach, he wrote on Facebook.
Once the crew members got there, they helped the deer out of the boat, and he swam straight to shore, photos show.
The crew then sailed back out to catch more lobsters, Dorr wrote on Facebook.
Deer are “among the most familiar animals of Maine,” according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and 94 percent of the state is considered their habitat.
This story was originally published November 6, 2019 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Crew hoping to catch lobsters 5 miles offshore in Maine instead finds a swimming deer."
