It must have been hard to leave. It can't be good for them to walk up to people. Right now it's cute and cool, but when hunters appear, it's gonna be a different ending.

They get a lot smarter if they live long enough.

that's called habituated. How heavily populated is the area you were in? That deer looks like it's been fed by humans and that would explain the lack of wariness and coming right up to lick your hand and let you pet it. Hope it doesn't cause it harm. Obviously you aren't responsible for the habituation and it is cool when you can get close to wildlife... It is kind of cool though.

And then there are some deer who befriend domestic pets and frequent their yards to come and play. I have seen video of a cat and deer pair, a couple dogs whose friends are deer. it happens.

I do hope it made your day, even if it is habituated, it seems like it was a first time for you and a "good vibes" things. thanks for sharing.

I cringe whenever I see people pull over to pet the moose with their kids.

I live a short drive from a major national park and I visit it often. People who visit these parks mistakenly stop to try and pet grizzly bars, moose, bison, you name it... they think every place is a petting zoo and when they get hurt they try to sue. They never read the literature that they get when they enter the parks and they think that they have some special power that makes it safe for them to pet wild animals when other are not allowed to.

As I said earlier, there are some cases where the wild animals befriend domestic animals and even people but that is often due to people giving them food to lure them in and gain their trust, as appears to be the case with this deer... habituation. Just as a side note, people say they have reason to fear wolves but the only people who have been harmed by wolves in north America had either been feeding them and then stopped or had dogs with them... wolves don't tolerate dogs in their "territory".

At any rate, pretty deer, hope it learns to fear humans.

(s)he didn't just break out of a near by petting zoo? Sooo adorable!

a smile for sure!

He's going to walk up to the wrong person one of these days and be shot with something other than a camera.

Did you by chance think about contacting your local game warden to let them know about him?

Eventually, that deer will end up on someone's dinner table, and if it is a buck, its head will end up on some dumb hunter's wall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/us/park-plans-to-cull-deer-in-washington-dc.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


There were virtually no deer in Rock Creek Park until as recently as the 1960s, when sightings began to increase. Suburban development most likely forced the deer into the park from Maryland, and an absence of predators — other than cars — allowed the herd to swell.

The park service began monitoring the animals’ impact in 1990. Today, it estimates that there are almost 400 deer in the park, and conflicts have become inevitable. Dozens of deer are killed yearly in collisions with cars. In 2009, a deer wandered into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo in front of crowds of children and horrified parents. Several weeks ago, a deer crashed through a window of a public library branch in the city. In both cases, the wounded animals were euthanized.

But the most typical interactions have forced exasperated homeowners to reach into their bank accounts to restore their landscaping, flower beds and gardens.

Fences have become an essential backyard barricade. Homeowners spray lion urine on their plants and string bells from the trees. Some have advocated opening the park to hunting, but federal law forbids it.

So the job of culling the deer will fall to the professionals. It is not yet clear exactly when the cull would take place, because financing is still an issue — about $131,000 in the first year alone. When it does, it is expected to be done at night by government sharpshooters, who would pick off the deer drawn to bait stations placed away from residential neighborhoods.

The goal is to reduce the herd to 60 to 80 deer over three years. The meat will be donated to local food banks.

plenty of them just cannot wait to get out there and kill

I googled "duct tape deer". Sorry.