A White-tailed doe missing half her mouth and nose is trying to beat the odds
By Staci-lee Sherwood
A few weeks ago I saw a trail cam video with a shocking image. An adult White-tailed Deer doe with half her mouth and nose missing appeared on screen. Even more surprising, she was eating a flower. Another video shows her full body with other members of the herd and she looked healthy. She’s clearly determined to beat the odds because eating and drinking must be a constant struggle for her. She reminded me of Half-beak the Bluejay, another amazing female animal thriving and raising young while missing the top part of her beak. These two animals have one thing in common, their fierce ability to overcome trauma to survive in the wild. I named her PM Princess, partial mouth princess for easy identification should she appear on other videos.
Direct physical injury from a vehicle, fence, or predator attack can break their delicate upper facial bones. Looking at her injury it doesn’t look like a birth defect or disease but one from impact. She lives in a rural so called ‘wildlife management’ area (WMA) which just means there’s hunting most of the time. It’s most likely she was shot, her injuries don’t look like they could have come from anything else. During the official hunting seasons there are very few vehicles, including the enormous swamp buggys. Impact with a fence wouldn’t cause this type of injury nor impact from any vehicle. A deer hit by a vehicle of any size is usually hit in the body area not at an angle where part of the upper mouth and nose were torn off.
When my mom saw her photo she said “Dear God how does she survive?”
Her story is about the circle of life. It’s amazing to see how healthy and active she is after nearly two months of first being spotted on the trail cam. In Florida the only agency who would act is Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) a most egregious and blatant anti wildlife agency. They’re more a hunting lobby than anything else. Their only thought would be to shoot her. As painful as her injuries look and the tragedy of how it happened she is part of the ecosystem and natural food chain. She lives where carnivores pass through and she is part of their natural diet.
This was the first video capture on June 4, 2026. You can see she’s eating a wildflower and is part of a heard. How she managed to eat is a miracle.
This screen shot is from June 4, 2026.
Video from June 29, 2026 walking right by trail cam
This is a screenshot from a trail cam video dated June 29, 2026. It’s clear she has been able to survive at least 8 weeks and doesn’t appear to be starving.
Another video of her in the rain June 29, 2026 later in the day.
Another screen shot as she pauses in the early morning rain after the other does crossed the path. Every video shows here with her herd.
The damage hunters do to wildlife
There are no accurate estimates of injured, not killed, wildlife by hunters. According to an article from 2019 in MEATEATER ‘A recent Wisconsin study of GPS-collared deer in two regions put wounding losses at 3% in the northern forest area and 15.3% in the farmland area, or 10% overall.’ Many state and federal agencies guess it could run up to 15%. These would be animals injured by rifles, shotguns, bow & arrow or traps. No one really knows but since government agencies notoriously fudge numbers to make themselves look better it’s likely way more than anyone imagines. Hiking through any WMA and you see the disrespect hunters have for the land. Tons of beer cans, plastic water bottles and junk food wrappers can always be found. The more use a place has the more trash.
Hunters will say they love the animals they kill, not realizing how psychotic and disingenuous that sounds. Killing animals is never about conservation, these same people never rescue the orphans they leave behind, constantly pose for selfies with their kills they think makes them look like men and many have boasted about the torture they inflict. I would rather have this doe live however long she has, free, than to end up in the hands of someone like that.
The level of violence toward animals is proof we have failed as a species and a society. The acceptance of depravity shows we really don't deserve to be at the top of the food chain. How anyone can take pleasure inflicting pain and suffering on any other living being shows their level of depravity and psychological disease.
Losing wildlife faster than we can count or see
Hunting is NOT a form of management. I’ve been to dozens of wildlife WMA’s all over the country. Many are more dead zones than thriving a ecosystem where hunted wildlife populations have all but vanished, others still have some life. It’s easy to believe what’s reported by ‘experts’; like the ‘award winning’ journalists that secretly fail to research sources and nonprofits paid by industries they claim to investigate or government agencies not realizing they’ve all been co-opted by hunters and developers.
Take a hike, literally and look around. Back in the 1970s in the most developed urban areas you could hear lots of wildlife rustling in the trees and on the ground from birds to squirrels to small mammals, throughout the day because they were plentiful. Now it’s mostly silence. Birders and wildlife photographers will flock to a hotspot just to see 1 or maybe a few of a particular species when years ago there would be too many too count.
What to do if you see injured wildlife
If you’re out and you see an injured wild animal think before you act. If the animal is truly in pain then quick mercy is best no animal should be made to suffer. If the animal seems to be surviving let them alone. Animal control agencies are a killing agency. Few shelters take wild animals and the few that do only take natives and are usually operating at full capacity. If you know a wildlife rehabilitator that isn’t a hunter that would be the person to call, someone just looking to help the animal not exploit. Ask yourself if this animal could even be helped and if so would that mean captivity? Most people would dread living like that so let’s not force that on wild animals. The best thing you can do for wildlife is work to educate people how bad hunting is, and to work toward finally banning it. Only then will animals, like this doe, truly have a chance to live free of fear or pain.
As your mom said! I agree - she looks fit and healthy - imagine how hard it was for her to come back from that injury just to get so she could feed herself. Having a herd makes a hell of difference.
I feed deer corn in the winter (my place is 4 acres & lots of woods all around). A few years ago, I started seeing a young deer with one front leg dangling from the knee down. I saw him all winter and into spring - the next fall saw HIM again with antlers. That was the last time - obviously it was getting to be hunting season at the time. He survived the injury & dealt w…