Of all the unusual things you might expect to encounter at sea — a mermaid, a ghost ship, Johnny Depp — a deer is probably not one of them.
Russian fisherman Dmitry Konevsky was therefore in for a surprise when he came across a sika deer swimming in the Amur Bay toward the far eastern city of Vladivostok, the PrimaMedia regional news agency reported Monday.
A video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday captures the moment Konevsky's boat approached the deer, which had most likely swum from the Peschany peninsula, located about 12 kilometers across the bay from Vladivostok, the fisherman told PrimaMedia.
Sika deers, a type of spotted deer native to eastern Asia, are renowned for their swimming ability, but do not normally travel such long distances by water.
After spotting the deer, Konevsky told PrimaMedia that he had contacted the local emergency services and that they told him they were already aware of the situation. The fishermen were afraid to try and bring the animal onboard themselves, he added.
However, the story might not have such a happy ending, after a spokesperson for the regional branch of the Emergency Services Ministry told PrimaMedia that his agency had not received any such phone call.
“It seems most likely that the fishermen either did not contact the ministry, or rang the wrong number. For now we don't know where the animal is located or what happened to it,” he said.
Watch the video:
