BIG PINE KEY, Fla. — A family was enjoying a day on their boat near Big Pine Key last Saturday when they got a wonderful surprise.
They saw several endangered Key deer foraging on a canal bank when suddenly, the deer jumped in the water and swam 30 feet across the canal.
Dr. Jaime Kulaga said she and her family kept watching and saw that the deer safely made it to dry ground on the other side.
Key deer are strong swimmers -- and need to be -- as they hunt for food on islands separated by water.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Key deer are the smallest subspecies of white-tailed deer.
“Key deer are found only in the Florida Keys, the archipelago of islands off the southern tip of Florida,” the FWC posted on its website. “While their historic range probably went from Key Vaca south to Key West, their range now includes about 26 islands from Big Pine Key to Sugarloaf Key and they can swim from one island to another.”
According to the FWC, the numbers of Key deer dropped down to less than 50 in the 1940s due to hunting and habitat destruction, but the establishment of the National Key Deer Refuge in 1957 helped the Florida-only subspecies survive.
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