A deer rescued in dramatic fashion from a New Jersey pond after spending at least a day stranded on the ice not only has a new lease on life, it has a new family.
Cellphone video showed a local herd apparently whisking away the doe, who arrived sedated at an animal sanctuary after she was pulled to safety from the pond near Willow Walk and Pondside in Roxbury Township Sunday.
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Kelly Simonetti of the Antler Ridge Wildlife Sanctuary said the animal looked "like a bad drunk" and took four to six hours to recover under some pine trees on the ground. She was sore and tired from being splayed across the ice, Simonetti said, but was expected to back to her "deer" old self before long.
She ran off with the herd, apparently accepted by the other deer, later on. Corless said the deer has been eartagged and the herd stays on the sanctuary property; there is no fencing but the deer are basically locked in by farms.
Officials from the Morris County Office of Emergency Management brought in a small vehicle with tank treads to rescue the deer from the pond Sunday morning. But for a quick tumble from the rescue vehicle into the water, crew members safely removed the animal from the frigid pond just before noon.
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Video first showed the deer stuck in the middle of the pond Saturday, but given the conditions of the ice and safety concerns, officials had to wait a day to get more appropriate equipment for the rescue.
Due to the thickness of the ice and safety issues for the rescuers, officials decided to reconvene at 8 a.m. Sunday with the equipment they needed to rescue the deer, police said.
