The story goes like this. Three Sheboygan, Wisconsin men were out taking a walk in Evergreen Park along with a dog when all of a sudden a deer attacked them.
Anthony Lee, 20, was with his cousin, George Lee, 19, and father, Tou Moua Lee, 47, in Evergreen Park about 12:45 p.m. Wednesday when an injured 6-point buck stepped suddenly onto the trail, Anthony Lee said. The animal, which they later found had been shot with both a gun and an arrow, blew air through its nose several times and charged.
The three men claim that they took turns wrestling this 170-pound, 6-point buck. When one man got tired hanging on to the antlers and keeping the wounded deer at bay, another would step in a take his place. At times one would go into the woods and bring out branches, logs, etc. and commence to beat the deer over the head with them.
“I must have broke like eight, nine logs on the back of his head,” said George Lee, laughing as he recalled rushing into the woods in search of weapons. “If we didn’t fight back we would’ve gotten torn up.”
The article states that the deer was wounded when it came out of the woods and that later on they discovered the deer had been hit with a shotgun slug as well as an arrow. Is this consistent with hunting seasons in the area? I’m not sure but we can’t dismiss the possibility of poachers.
The three men eventually tired the deer out and was able to get the deer down on its side and they sat on it. They then called 911 to report they were being attacked by a deer.
“I’m at Evergreen Park right now and there’s a deer trying to attack us,” George Lee can be heard saying at the start of the 911 call, which authorities said came in at 1 p.m.
The men also claim that they tried, unsuccessfully, to videotape the attack. This while the men sat on the deer for 20 – 30 minutes while police tried to locate them in the park.
This is of course a bizarre set of circumstances.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that in my career … (someone) holding a deer down,” said Lt. Jim Veeser of the Sheboygan Police Department, adding that two officers responded to the scene.
Dale Katsma, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said such brazen attacks are a “real rare thing,” and attributed the deer’s aggression primarily to the mating season.
“It could just be related to aggressiveness during the rutting period, and then maybe complicated by being injured as well,” said Katsma. “You hear about this occasionally when people have deer in game farms or pet situations. Usually you don’t hear about that kind of thing in the wild.”
There is one sentence in the article that has me scratching my head just a tad.
Anthony Lee said Wednesday night that they found a slug in the deer’s side and an arrow tip in its hind leg, both of which were bleeding when it attacked.
Does this statement imply that at some point after the attack, Lee found a slug and arrow tip – like they took the deer home and while making a closer examination discovered two wounds? Or is this just the writer noting that it was Wednesday night when he interviewed Lee about the story.
Due to the rarity of such a thing happening, combined with a story of three men wrestling a deer, wounded or not, sure leaves me with a few questions. The biggest question I would have to raise has to do mostly with anyone wrestling a 170-lb. antlered deer – wounded or not. Did I mention that Anthony Lee, who may be the biggest of the three men, weighs 130 pounds?
Tom Remington
