The Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin routinely responds to a wide range of rescue missions in and around the Big Green Lake area. However, their latest rescue was like nothing they’d ever experienced before.
“We’ve done a lot of human rescues, looking for people, lost people, search and rescue stuff, accident scene crashes. Never done one doing a herd deer drive with a drone,” Detective Josh Ward said.
That’s right! This would be a deer recovery, using a drone. The drone’s camera captured the incredible footage of a doe and her two fawns after they had fallen through the lake’s ice.
All three deer were treading in nearly 40 feet of water, roughly 200 yards out from shore.
Despite their best efforts to climb from the icy waters, the deer failed to get back on solid ice. Instead, they broke through ice and slush that took them further away, in the opposite direction of the shore.
Ward knew it would take a creative rescue effort, simply because of a deer’s fear of people.
“If we came from the shoreline with a boat, they’re just going to try and get away, and you’re actually doing more harm than good because you’re pushing them further and further away from shore. We couldn’t come in from the water side, because that’s obviously all froze over,” Ward said.
That’s when the plan came together to use a drone to corral the deer toward the shore.
“I’m thinking that drone, if I can do it, it’s easy enough that I can just bring it around and do a cattle drive, but for deer, and just use the prop wash or the drone to motivate them,” Ward said.
The rescue wouldn’t be easy. Windy conditions would make flying a drone a challenge. But the team was confident in their plan – and it worked.
The last deer proved to be one of the biggest challenges. She was out of energy and didn’t have the strength to pull herself from the water and climb over the rocks lining the lake shore. However, after a little western lasso work, the last deer was pulled from the icy water and reunited with the others.
“We were able to get her up over the top of the rocks, where we then pulled her to dry land, and she laid down for a little bit. Had to conserve some energy, and then ultimately, just met up with her mother, and off they went,” Ward said.
The rescue team was able to pull three deer from the lake in an hour.
Ward admits the deer rescue was the most creative mission the sheriff’s office has ever done.
