Deer swims from N.B. to P.E.I., is struck and killed shortly after making it to shore

A deer is seen at the Michel-Chartrand Park in Longueuil, Que., Friday, November 13, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

A deer’s amphibious journey from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island ended in tragedy Tuesday when it was struck and killed shortly after swimming to shore.

The male white-tailed deer was reported dead to the province near the toll booths at the Confederation Bridge in Borden-Carleton, P.E.I.

It appears a truck hit the animal, decimating its lower half.

The province says deer have washed up dead on Island shores before, but having one swim across the Northumberland Strait is unheard of.

“I was amazed really that one made it across,” says Rosemary Curley, a retired biologist and co-author of “Mammals of Prince Edward Island and Adjacent Marine Waters.”

Fish and Wildlife staff collected the carcass and brought it to the Atlantic Veterinary College for inspection, but its condition left little information to be gleaned.

Curley says deer can swim, at most, around 9.6 kilometres, but it appears this deer made it the full 13 kilometres from New Brunswick to P.E.I.

She says the deer must have seen land on the other side for it to get in the water in the first place.

“Like most mammals, if they are swimming, they have a destination in mind,” explains Curley. She says calm waters may have helped it get across.

There are no deer on P.E.I., and while bones dating back roughly 1,500 years have been found through archeological digs, Curley says they may have been brought by Indigenous people travelling from the mainland.

The modern deer arrived in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region in 1868, says Curley, after the “Little Ice Age” – from about 1300 to the mid-1700s – likely wiped out the deer population in the region.

In 1949, deer were introduced to the Island in an attempt to grow a population for sport hunting, but almost all were killed for meat or died in nature shortly after, says Curley.

But deer are not the first species to die out on P.E.I.

“Bears is the big one. The black bear, the last one was killed in 1927 as far as [what's] documented,” she says.

According to Curley, land-clearing and unregulated trapping likely played a role in the demise of other species on the Island like martins, otters, lynx and walruses.

Surveyor Samuel Holland recorded caribou on the Island in the 1700s.

“There were some, but very few," says Curley.

However, one animal not native to P.E.I. has made the journey across the frozen Northumberland Strait and now calls the Island home. In 1983, Curley says the first coyote was trapped on P.E.I.