Jim Persing / Submitted photoA mule deer buck found with an arrow in its side Monday at The Falls at Eagle Crest northwest of Bend. Biologists from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife surgically removed the arrow after tranquilizing the deer.

A mule deer wandering around Eagle Crest carries more than large antlers — the four-point buck also has a story of a close call with an arrow.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and Oregon State Police troopers responded this week to the report of a deer with an arrow stuck in its left side, said Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife.

A resident at The Falls at Eagle Crest, a community for people 55 and older 5 miles west of Redmond , reported the buck’s predicament.

The biologists hit the deer with a tranquilizer dart and then performed what they described as surgery in a garage to remove the arrow, Dennehy wrote in an email.

“It took about 90 minutes for the deer to be darted and surgery performed,” she wrote. “They released it in (the) same neighborhood where it was found and it walked away.”

Jim Persing, who called in the report of the wounded deer, said many deer frequent the neighborhood and he does not know whether he saw this one before it showed up injured. Who shot the deer, as well as when and where, is a mystery.

“We don’t know where he came from,” he said. Persing added that he thought the deer would be OK after the surgery.

It is unclear whether the deer was shot legally, said OSP Sgt. Lowell Lea.

“Archery season closed in that area in late September,” he said. But on the opposite side of nearby state Highway 126 the season did not close until Monday, the same day the deer was reported injured.

It was not the first time in recent months that state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists aided a deer found wounded in Central Oregon with an arrow.

In October they responded to a report of a mule deer with an arrow lodged in its shoulder blade, Dennehy wrote in an email. The deer was only 2 miles from the Fish and Wildlife office in Bend. Three active duty soldiers from Fort Lewis in Washington happened to be at the office to pick up state hunting licenses and assisted with the surgery to take out the arrow.

“Our staff is becoming pretty skilled at removing these,” she said.

Development on the fringes of Bend and around Central Oregon has brought more deer into contact with people, Dennehy said. Along with removing arrows, state biologists have also untangled deer caught in tomato cages and Christmas lights.

In November 2014, state biologists in Bend freed a big mule deer known locally and on the Internet as “Buck Norris” from wire tangled in his famous atypical antlers. The big buck was found dead this May in north Bend, where he had been hit by a passing vehicle.

— Reporter: 541-617-7812,

ddarling@bendbulletin.com