West Side Rag reader Jeff Cohen was walking his dog in Riverside Park before 8 a.m. on Wednesday when he said he saw something surprising — a deer!
“The deer was running through the park when I entered with my dog,” he wrote. “There were 3-4 police vehicles trying, I guess, to corral the deer. The deer was huge. Very beautiful.”
He told us he’s never seen anything like it before. “It was surreal like a dystopian movie. Reminded me of [the movie] I Am Legend.”
Unfortunately, the animal darted into traffic, Cohen wrote. It was hit and killed around 7:45 a.m.
Police had no information on the incident. The Parks Department said they did not receive a report about a deer and the Riverside Park Conservancy did not respond to a request for comment.
There was a deer down by the water on the running path around 6:45AM this morning. Seemed confused and was running up and down the guardrail next to the West Side highway. RIP.
RIP deer.
Doh! A deer!
We don’t have enough to worry about these days in NYC.
Now we have to be concerned with Lyme Disease.
I don’t know how to link to it here, but you can read an article from a little over a year ago on WebMD about Lyme disease in NYC – just search the site, very easy, and you will see that Lyme disease is here already.
As the NYT might say, a “hitherto reliable source” (Wikipedia!) tells of an olde Irish anti-war ballad called “Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye”, whose lyrics include:
“The enemy nearly slew ye / Oh darling dear / ye look so queer….”
Here, revised to honor the poor beastie:
Them cars surely slew ye / Oh darling DEER, ye look so queer / Poor white-tail, we hardly knew ye….
I bet it was a racist deer just by the way it ran in front of a car
Police stated that “no criminality was suspected”
Five NYPD scare a deer into jumping to its death. Each officer costs 100K with pay and benefits. That’s 500K right there. No tranquilizer dart gun. What went wrong? Police tactics need to change.
Lol right? It’s ALL the NYPD’s fault! Again! (shaking fist at the sky) 😀
Fewer cars = more deer. Welcome to the suburbs.
In defense of deer, today in the New York Times a doctor explained that blaming deer for Lyme disease is inaccurate. He said the black-legged tick that carries the disease attaches itself to at least 50 different species of mammals, including mice and chipmunks.
Where in the park was this?
The highway transverse @ W. 101st St. The deer jumped over the fence on the upper path – I lost sight of it after that until I heard the sound of the accident.
Rip
What an absolute shame. Can someone tell me why this beautiful animal had to be chased so much that it ran into traffic and died!?!
Poor deer.
I WISH some readers could refrain from attempts to show off their pseudo-witty big-city cynicism.* Even the IDEA of a deer in Riverside Park—at any time, let alone these pandemic days—should be something to delight and thrill us, leaving us to ponder how it got there before we humans caused its death.
*Am surprised no one’s posted a venison recipe!
ITA with you! Everyone else across the country is posting lovely videos of deer coming into their yards, and in my hometown there was even a small herd of deer that crossed a bridge to the other side of town. No one chased them down or tried to corral them. It’s unfathomable how people react to wildlife here. 🙁
OOOO – venison! Yum!
Agree!
Bravo I agree
So Sad. Why not 30MPH speed limit on highways nstead f the 80-90 I’ve seen recently on NYS and NJ highways. How much longer would it take to go the 12 mile (at most) length of Manhattan
Ou la fiction dépasse la réalité !
Incroyable !
What happened to calling animal control instead of police who have no idea how to handle deer? Does New York City have animal control?
As a recent transplant from the suburbs I can only commiserate with the poor animal but I am also wondering what bridge did it take to get here? Did E-Z Pass cameras catch it?