Stag spotted out swimming
A stag taking a swim in Queen Charlotte Sound has taken an group on an eco tour by surprise.
It was a few hundred metres off the coast on Saturday when the animal was spotted by those on board a boat for the Eco Tours ‘‘Myths and Legends’’ cruise.
Colin Aitchison, photographer, owner and drone operator at GCH UAV managed to get photos and video of the uncommon behaviour.
‘‘It was going between the islands and the mainland. We spotted it out in the middle (of the sound). I don’t want to say exactly where it was and give it away because there’s already quite a few people saying they’re going to go out and have a look for it,’’ Aitchison said.
‘‘The less they know the better off that one will be.’’
He thought the stag’s antlers had eight points, but wasn’t sure what type of deer it was.
‘‘The wife of the guy running the boat spotted it and we slowed right down and stopped and took some photos and watched it swim off to where it was going, jump out of the water and run up the side of the hill and disappear.
‘‘At one point ... it looked like its head was going under and I was going to throw a rope around it and drag it out but we just kept a close eye on it and it was fine once it regained its composure and kept going.’’
Aitchison hadn’t even seen a deer in the area before, let alone swimming.
‘‘We’ve got a property down the other end of Queen Charlotte Sound and I’ve been holidaying out there my whole life and I’ve never even seen a deer (there).
‘‘I’m a pig hunter and I’ve never even come across sign of any deer, or seen or heard one in my life to see it in the water was pretty cool.’’
But while it’s uncommon, it seems like the behaviour isn’t unheard of for deer in the Marlborough Sounds.
In June 2017, a mussel farmer spotted a deer swimming near Maud Island.
Clearwater Mussels owner John Young said the deer was abut 250 metres from the shore, in water 40m deep. It was swimming through the buoys of the mussel farm, pushing itself up and over the lines that lay just under the water.
Department of Conservation Sounds area biodiversity threats programme manager Phil Clerke said deer were known to swim to islands occasionally.
The animals ‘‘get there under their own steam.’’
‘‘I don’t think swimming is too foreign to deer. People just think about them [deer] keeping their feet dry,’’ he said.’’it could happen way more than what people see because they [deer] are pretty active at night.’’