I thought I would share these pictures with the forum. I have had the great fortune to spend about five weeks every summer in Alaska for the last few years. I always see a lot of wildlife, this year I saw something you guys might enjoy. I was moving up a straight that was over a quarter mile wide, the water was about 800 feet deep and I am guessing not much over 50 degrees. I saw something in the water ahead. No big deal as I often see trees floating in that area and not at all unusual with all the rain we had had.
As I got closer the shape looked more like the fins of a fish/whale, So I quickly vectored towards. As I got closer I could tell it was not a sea creature. I was surprised to see a momma and fawn swimming across the straight. Now that I knew it was a deer, I was much closer than I wanted, I threw the engine into neutral to reduce wake and then moved to give momma plenty of room. I was much closer to the deer before I decided to pull my camera out, I could have gotten a much better shot (I hope you can see them), but I was pretty surprised to see deer that far out.
Momma took baby accrosss right at low tide. The island that they swam from was about 40 acres (a conservative guess) and they were swimming towards a much larger land mass. Locals widely believe that deer swim out to these islands to drop fawns safe from wolves (who don’t like to swim that far). I thought it was interesting that momma did slow down a few times to feel the fawns front legs hit her back, she never looked back and swam as fast as the fawn could follow. As I watched them swim across I had to think about how tough those deer where. Momma was teaching her fawn A life lesson in survival, making the fawn better for it. They made it all the way across and I saw them land on a beach. Baby had wobbly legs as they moved into the brush. Funny thing is, I had seen a large pod of orca (6-8) almost a year ago move through that very straight. One was a very large male.
As I got closer the shape looked more like the fins of a fish/whale, So I quickly vectored towards. As I got closer I could tell it was not a sea creature. I was surprised to see a momma and fawn swimming across the straight. Now that I knew it was a deer, I was much closer than I wanted, I threw the engine into neutral to reduce wake and then moved to give momma plenty of room. I was much closer to the deer before I decided to pull my camera out, I could have gotten a much better shot (I hope you can see them), but I was pretty surprised to see deer that far out.
Momma took baby accrosss right at low tide. The island that they swam from was about 40 acres (a conservative guess) and they were swimming towards a much larger land mass. Locals widely believe that deer swim out to these islands to drop fawns safe from wolves (who don’t like to swim that far). I thought it was interesting that momma did slow down a few times to feel the fawns front legs hit her back, she never looked back and swam as fast as the fawn could follow. As I watched them swim across I had to think about how tough those deer where. Momma was teaching her fawn A life lesson in survival, making the fawn better for it. They made it all the way across and I saw them land on a beach. Baby had wobbly legs as they moved into the brush. Funny thing is, I had seen a large pod of orca (6-8) almost a year ago move through that very straight. One was a very large male.
