“So it’s just kinda stuck there til it dies?”
“This is the most brutal thing I’ve seen this week.”
“I guess that’s the most disturbing one I’ve seen here so far.”
Those are just some of the comments that appeared in a new video posted by the Instagram channel Nature Is Metal.
The video by photographer Alba Sarrià shows the unidentified species in an unidentified place and date walking with a dead fawn lodged in the birth canal.
According to the post, the issue is called dystocia, which is defined as “the inability to expel the fetus through the birth canal without assistance.”
Under ideal conditions, a veterinarian could remove the baby deer, but this was photographed in the wild, so the mother has only a few possible outcomes.
First, the dead baby might dislodge on its own; second, it causes an infection; and third, it might attract predators.
As for what exactly happened, no one knows. Sarrià wrote in the comments: “Unfortunately, I never saw how it ended up.”
That appears to be a Thompson’s Gazelle, not a deer. And I am not convinced the baby is dead. Hopefully the mother was able to get the little one out and she recovers completely.