‘Elegant’ deer rescue by helicopter from Antigonish Harbor ice.

This is amazing.

Department of Natural Resources (DNR) responded to a call from Ian Waugh of Antigonish to report a fawn and its mother trapped on thin ice on Antigonish Harbor, Nova Scotia. The first visit was unsuccessful as it was immediately apparent that the ice was too thin and brittle to attempt physical rescue.

The DNR responders left and after a while, Waugh learned they may be returning with a helicopter to attempt another rescue. Two hours later, the helicopter returned and the pilot was able to rescue the deer by maneuvering the helicopter low and close enough for the air turbulence generated by the rotor blades to move the deer along the slippery ice toward shore.

As Ian Waugh described, it was truly an elegant rescue.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a public link to the entire video, only to news snippets. However, CTV news had a link on their site and although I am unable to embed it in this article due to copyright, here is the link to CTV’s article.