A group of fishermen have enjoyed a seriously surreal sight, spotting something they’ve never seen before while out on the water on the NSW south coast.
The friends were on a small fishing boat travelling along the river in Narooma on Friday morning when they noticed some unusual creatures moving in the water.
“We came across them, and at first I thought it was a log in the water,” local fisherman Tim Wilson told Yahoo News.
But as they got a better look, the group realised it was a herd of nearly a dozen deer swimming through the water, their heads just poking above the surface.
“Then I realised it was a group of deer cruising past.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Tim said.
“They were swimming fairly quick, swimming faster than I could.”
Tim was filming content for his local fishing gear business Montague Jigs at the time. As anyone would do in such a situation, he whipped out his phone to film the unlikely scene.
“Have a look at this… under the powerlines boys, you never know what you might catch,” he can be heard saying in disbelief.
“Are you kidding me?”
The group watched the feral deer make their way across the river on the NSW south coast on Friday morning. Source: Supplied/Tim Wilson
In another video filmed from the boat, the deer can be seen making their way to the shore and casually heading into nearby bushland.
“They were heading north across the channel, I don’t know what they were doing,” Tim told Yahoo. “I think they were just commuting south to north,” he laughed.
Feral deer populations causing havoc across Australia
Feral deer populations have been causing problems in Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia and WA in recent years with their populations thought to be exploding in parts of the country.
Increasingly, they are encroaching on our cities with deer recently filmed on train tracks in Eastwood in Sydney’s northwest, as well as in the southern suburbs of the major city.
The invasive species is reportedly responsible for millions of dollars of damage in road accidents each year and are even partly blamed for rising insurance premiums. A Canberra driver was lucky to escape unscathed last month when a deer ran out in front of their car during morning traffic – with the heart-stopping moment captured on dash-cam video.
Meanwhile one Victorian produce growing business told Yahoo News in June they had lost more than $100,000 worth of crops to feral deer in less than a year.
In South Australia it’s a similar story, with residents in the Adelaide Hills saying deer populations are overrunning their gardens after a purported surge in numbers.
In Western Australia, authorities this week completed the state’s first targeted aerial cull of feral deer, with more than 500 animals killed from helicopters over the past three weeks in Esperance and Harvey.
First brought to Australia by European settlers in the 1800s, deer were mainly imported for recreational hunting. Red deer were introduced followed by several other species in the following years, including fallow, sambar, chital and muntjac.
Residents are urged to log sightings on DeerScan. The app can be used by land management agencies and councils to help inform where community awareness, education and control efforts can be best supported.
Discover more of our environment coverage.