A young deer in Michigan is back in the wild after spending 10 days with a plastic Halloween pumpkin bucket stuck over its face. Rescuers from the Detroit Animal Welfare Group finally freed the animal on Sunday in Hines Park, Westland, after a search that crossed rivers, woods and social media.
The deer was first spotted in Livonia, where resident Jessica Cross saw the orange jack-o’-lantern wedged over its muzzle. “The way the face was all centered with the pumpkin. I mean, it was cute, but it also wasn’t,” she told 7 News Detroit.
A 10-day hunt through the suburbs
The Detroit Animal Welfare Group, a nonprofit based in Romeo, began posting about the deer and asking the public to report every sighting. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources gave the group permission to tranquilise the animal if they could get close enough.
On Sunday, a sighting came from Hines Park, a 2,300-acre stretch of woods and river in Wayne County, miles from where the deer was first seen. Volunteers followed it through the woods and waded through a 20-foot-wide river four times in freezing water up to their thighs before they could dart it.
A surprise under the pumpkin
Up close, rescuers found a surprise: for 10 days the animal had been described as a doe, but it was actually a young male, known as a button buck. He was moderately dehydrated after being unable to eat or drink properly, so volunteers gave him fluids and clipped a tag to his ear.
The ear tag is required by Michigan law because of the tranquiliser, and it warns hunters not to eat the animal within a month — the tag reads “Do Not Eat Until 12/8/26”. Once the sedative was reversed, the buck was up and on his way. “He stopped for a few minutes to groom himself and look back to say thank you!” the group wrote.
Rescue director Kelley LaBonty said deer get their heads caught in plastic pumpkins every autumn. “Every year, this is a big thing every year,” she told 7 News Detroit. Her advice is simple: after trick-or-treating, remove the handles from plastic pumpkins or bring them inside.
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