A black-tailed deer spotted with a child\u2019s swim vest stuck around her neck near Shelton was safely helped by a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife specialist, the agency said.<\/p>\n
According to WDFW, wildlife conflict specialist Ryan McNiff responded to reports of the doe seen roaming with the flotation device tangled around her neck in Mason County. <\/p>\n
The plastic vest, likely discarded outdoors, had become lodged in a way that prevented the animal from removing it on her own.<\/p>\n
McNiff was able to immobilize the deer, safely remove the swim vest, and release her back into the wild. <\/p>\n
She was reunited with her fawn shortly afterward, WDFW said.<\/p>\n
Photos shared by the agency show the worn, bright blue and yellow vest\u2014clearly not intended for wildlife\u2014wrapped awkwardly around the animal\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n
Officials used the incident as a reminder to the public not to attempt to help wildlife on their own. <\/p>\n
Under Washington law, it is illegal for anyone without a permit to hold or care for wild animals, even if they appear injured or in distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttempting to care for wildlife without the appropriate skills and experience can make the situation worse,\u201d the agency said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Anyone who encounters wildlife that may need help is urged to contact a permitted wildlife rehabilitator.<\/p>\n
\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A black-tailed deer spotted with a child\u2019s swim vest stuck around her neck near Shelton was safely helped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-14893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}