Hormone Crazed Deer Goes Shopping

This week's Animal Oddity is the hormone-crazed deer that went on a shopping spree in the middle of Washington, DC. Back in October of 2005, a yearling white-tailed deer wandered out of Rock Creek Park and into the oddest of places: the bustling shopping district of Georgetown.

The deer first wandered into Diesel, but apparently it wasn't into urban fashion and decided to smash up a mirror. After that it headed over to Ralph Lauren to browse the preppier styles there and ended up in a dressing room.

By that point, store employees and customers had scattered and called for help. Traffic on Wisconsin Avenue came to a standstill when animal control officers arrived on the scene. Luckily, they were able to tranquilize and remove the furry shopper, and a little while later, release it back into the park.

Fall is the mating season for deer, when the males spar with each other in dominance battles for access to females. In all likelihood, the young male deer was simply in a hormone-induced, sexually frustrated state that caused it to lose its natural caution and head into the busy streets of Georgetown -- not unlike the male college students and 20-somethings that roam those same streets on any given weekend.

Find out more about the burgeoning white-tailed deer population in DC's Rock Creek Park from National Wildlife magazine. As always, you can read more odd stories, news and sightings from the animal world on my Animal Planet blog, Animal Oddities.

Surprisingly, I wasn't able to find any video footage of the Georgetown deer online, but check out this video from Animal Planet about another deer that showed up in an odd place.