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A Sambar deer fawn has passed away after days of being stranded in a deep canal.
On Jun. 6, the wildlife rescue team of Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) received a call alerting them to a deer that was stuck in a canal.
When the rescue team arrived at the scene, they identified the animal to be a Sambar deer fawn.
Stranded for days
After rescuing the baby deer from its plight, the team observed that it was "emaciated and weak", which was a bad sign since it indicated that the fawn had likely been stranded or abandoned for days.
"Despite our best efforts to rehydrate and stabilise the deer, it passed on soon after," Acres co-CEO Kalai Vanan shared with Mothership.
Far from home
According to Kalai, the sighting of the fawn was "peculiar", because the canal is far from the known Sambar deer home range in Singapore.
They theorised that the animal was stranded after falling into a large drain, and subsequently wandered off through the underground drainage system before appearing in a canal far away.
Sambar deer
Sambar deer in Singapore have a history of being involved in road accidents due to our city's urbanisation that encroaches into animal habitats.
The species was thought to have been extinct sometime between 1940 and 1950, before they began resurfacing in the early 1970s.
They were said to have recolonised parts of local forests after escaping from private and public zoos.
As of 2023, the sambar deer is listed as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
All images and gifs courtesy of Acres