A young Wyoming mule deer buck likely doesn’t realize how lucky he is. After all, the odds were stacked against the right people seeing him at the right time after his antlers became helplessly entangled in an electric fence.
“What are the odds we could come across a buck right alongside the road like that, and it would be our friends that would cut it loose and my husband that would video it?” Annie Boedigheimer-Beaumont told Cowboy State Daily.
The deer was trapped in a roadside field along U.S. Highway 26 between Dubois and Riverton when they spotted in Saturday.
The heartwarming video shows two Wyoming men — who she identified as “Clay and Mike” — using wire cutters to free the nearly exhausted buck from the wire. After it’s freed, the buck springs up and runs away, apparently no worse for wear.
She posted the video on social media, and it got a great response.
“In the comments section, everybody was saying what a great job those guys did saving that deer,” Boedigheimer-Beaumont said.
She added that the group is thankful toward the owner of the property the deer was trapped on. The landowner gave them permission to come on to the property and shut off power to the fence so the men could safely come to the deer’s aid.
Frequent Wyoming Visitors
Boedigheimer-Beaumont and her husband Shawn Beaumont live in Lyons, Oregon. They frequently visit Wyoming because they have friends in Dubois, and Beaumont has worked on some highway projects here.
They’re avid hunters and outdoorspeople, so they love Wyoming’s wildlife.
Along with their friends, they spotted the buck from their vehicle as it struggled in fresh snow to free itself.
They’re not sure how it had gotten entangled or how long it had been there. But given that the deer seemed about ready to give up, Boedigheimer-Beaumont guessed it had probably been there for quite a while.
“I thought it was a whitetail deer at first because he was so small. But then my husband said, ‘No, that’s a young muley,” she said.
“Usually with a buck or bull, they can be aggressive. But he submitted right away when they threw a jacket over his head. I think that deer had been there a while,” she said.
The buck’s antlers were so tightly entangled in the wire, some of the fence stuck even after he was freed. So, he got to keep a memento of his ordeal.
‘Mr. Muley Got To Live’
Given that Wyoming’s wild critters have such hard lives, Boedigheimer-Beaumont said it made her glad to see one get a much-needed lucky break.
“Watching those guys free that buck, that made my heart so happy,” she said. “They’re my heroes, saving a beautiful buck like that. Mr. muley got to live. I hope he gets to live many, many more wonderful days.”
And it wasn’t the only fantastic wildlife encounter Boedigheimer-Beaumont had during her latest visit to Wyoming.
She got an up-close view of two other bucks tangling in a fierce bout prompted by the rut, or deer mating season.
“I got to watch two muley bucks battle each other, locking horns. It was right in front of me, and I was like, holy smokes – to get to see that, it was just an adrenaline rush,” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
