A wild deer apparently jumped into the cheetah yard at the National Zoo this morning and didn’t make it out alive.
Zoo spokeswoman Annalisa Meyer says in an email that a zookeeper heard “bleating” from the yard at around 11:40 a.m. and, upon investigation, saw a brother-sister cheetah duo biting the deer in its throat and rear.
The deer died, and its body was removed by 11:54 a.m. There were no other witnesses, Meyer says.
The zoo will conduct a necropsy report on the deer to ensure that it didn’t have any diseases. As of now, the cheetahs, Carmelita and Justin, appear to be unharmed.
Photo by Mr. T in D.C.via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0