Stag surprise: Deer spotted swimming across Queen Charlotte Sound

Monday, 9 April 2018

The stag was spotted from a boat, much to the surprise of those on board.

A stag taking a swim in Queen Charlotte Sound has taken an group on an eco tour by surprise.

It was a few hundred metres off the coast on Saturday when the animal was spotted by those on board a boat for the Eco Tours 'Myths and Legends' cruise.

Colin Aitchison, photographer, owner and drone operator at GCH UAV managed to get photos and video of the uncommon behaviour.

'It was going between the islands and the mainland. We spotted it out in the middle (of the sound). I don't want to say exactly where it was and give it away because there's already quite a few people saying they're going to go out and have a look for it,' Aitchison said.

Aitchison said the stag disappeared up a hill once making it to shore.

* Swimming stag surprises fishermen**

'The less they know the better off that one will be.'

He thought the stag's antlers had eight points, but wasn't sure what type of deer it was.

A stag spotted swimming in the Queen Charlotte Sound by a group aboard an Eco Tours 'Myths and Legends' cruise on April 7, 2018.

'The wife of the guy running the boat spotted it and we slowed right down and stopped and took some photos and watched it swim off to where it was going, jump out of the water and run up the side of the hill and disappear.

'At one point … it looked like its head was going under and I was going to throw a rope around it and drag it out but we just kept a close eye on it and it was fine once it regained its composure and kept going.'

Aitchison hadn't even seen a deer in the area before, let alone swimming.

'We've got a property down the other end of Queen Charlotte Sound and I've been holidaying out there my whole life and I've never even seen a deer (there).

The stag was a few hundred metres out to sea when it was first spotted.

'I'm a pig hunter and I've never even come across sign of any deer, or seen or heard one in my life to see it in the water was pretty cool.'

But while it's uncommon, it seems like the behaviour isn't unheard of for deer in the Marlborough Sounds.

In June 2017, a mussel farmer spotted a deer swimming near Maud Island.

Clearwater Mussels owner John Young said the deer was abut 250 metres from the shore, in water 40m deep. It was swimming through the buoys of the mussel farm, pushing itself up and over the lines that lay just under the water.

Back in August 2010, Wellington doctor Hugh McCabe spotted a stag about a kilometre from shore at the entrance to Curious Cove in the Queen Charlotte Sound.

'We couldn't believe it, we thought it was a pile of sticks,' he said.

At the time, Department of Conservation Sounds area biodiversity threats programme manager Phil Clerke said deer were known to swim to islands occasionally.

The animals 'get there under their own steam' and were known to be on Blumine Island in Queen Charlotte Sound and Maud Island in Pelorus Sound, both pest-free conservation reserves.

They were not a predator on the islands because deer ate only plants, Clerke said.

He did not know why deer choose to swim but said it could be because of pressure to get away from hunters. It was most likely not because of a shortage of food, he said.

'I don't think swimming is too foreign to deer. People just think about them [deer] keeping their feet dry,' he said.'It could happen way more than what people see because they [deer] are pretty active at night.'