Deer in Upstate New York Freed from Hockey Net Stuck on Head for Two Weeks

By Tim Binnall

A wildlife rescue group in upstate New York rescued an unfortunate deer that had been wandering around with a hockey net stuck on its head for the last two weeks. Word of the animal's predicament first came to light on Saturday by way of a Facebook post from the Amherst Police Department wherein they alerted the public to the peculiar-looking creature roaming around the community. Noting that the buck was "extremely mobile" despite its unwanted headgear, they indicated that the deer had already managed to evade rescue workers on five separate occasions and had shown the ability to easily leap over a six-foot-tall fence when it was cornered.

To that end, they asked the public to avoid trying to help the animal themselves as chasing after it would only frighten the creature and ultimately make it "harder to catch." Fortunately, the buck's plight came to an end a few days later, as the department explained in a subsequent post, when the net-adorned deer "sought refuge in the nook of a church," which allowed rescue workers the opportunity to sedate it and then remove the onerous headgear that, they marveled, it had been wearing for the last two weeks. Once freed from the net, the animal was revived and set "free to do deer things unencumbered by rattling PVC pipe."