A closeup shot of a wapiti deer in a forest

Hunter’s Rifle Stolen By Deer Found After Four Months

In November, an older hunter in South Bohemia had the surprise of his life, when a deer took his weapon and ran away. Photo Credit: Freepik / Illustrative Photo.

In November, a deer in Horní Planá in the Český Krumlov region made headlines after it stole a hunter’s gun with its antlers, before running away with the weapon into the forest (Read more: Deer Takes Hunter’s Weapon and Hides in the Forest). Now that story has a sequel. Last weekend, two hunters in the forest discovered the rifle in the snow.

One of the hunters informed the police about their find. “Knowing what happened to his colleague last November, when a deer escaped with a weapon suspended on its antler, he suspected it was the same, CZ 527 repeating rifle. He immediately called his colleague, saying that the police would have the weapon,” said Jiří Matzner, a spokesman for the South Bohemian police.

“The rifle has corroded metal parts and the wooden stock is damaged. The weapon is also visibly scuffed, probably from the deer’s efforts to get rid of the hanging weight on its antlers,” said Matzner.

The rifle will now be a subject to a further police inspection. “However, we do not expect that the deer used it to commit a crime. Perhaps it was just enough to scare tourists or skiers,” said Matzner.

Last November, during a hunt in the Horní Planá forest district, an older man lost his 22 Hornet repeating rifle in the forest while hunting. Legally, the loss of a weapon must be reported to the police. Normally, this is nothing unusual; the police just write a report and issue a search for the lost weapon. But this case proved more difficult to solve, as the alleged thief was a deer, who escaped into the forest. 

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