Two coyotes emerge from darkness to chase down deer in Georgia field, video shows

A rarely seen moment of coyotes chasing a much larger deer was recorded by a trail camera in Georgia and shared on Facebook by the state’s Wildlife Resources Division.

The edited video, posted Saturday, shows a grazing deer appearing startled by something in the distance.

It turns in time to see two sets of glowing eyes coming at it from the darkness, and bolts out of the picture.

The eyes are quickly revealed to be two coyotes and they give chase, also vanishing out of the frame.

An outcome does not appear on 32-second video, but state officials say the deer appears to have escaped. It went back to “business as usual” — eating — within 5 minutes, officials said.

The deer appears to return to the field in the company of two other deer, suggesting it found safety in numbers.

“Coyotes occasionally take down adult deer, but it is not often recorded,” the state wrote. “Several recent studies of GPS-collared deer have shown that coyotes are almost never a cause of death for an adult deer.”

The video has a time stamp of July 21, and was recorded around 1 a.m.

Georgia DNR officials said they shared the video because “it’s not a behavior everyone gets the chance to see” — other than hunters.

The video prompted others to share their own photos of deer that had suffered severe injuries trying to outrun a predator, along with a few who did not escape being killed.

“They can & will kill an adult deer if they have the opportunity,” Dan Tarpley wrote on the Georgia DNR Facebook page.

“A lot of folks say a (coyote) can’t take down a mature deer, but I can tell ya they can take a cow down, too,” Tim Pitts posted.

Coyotes get as big as 45 pounds in Georgia, but the average weight is about 30 pounds, the Atlanta Coyote Project reports.

“Small house pets (especially cats), young or small livestock and poultry are vulnerable and susceptible” to a coyote attack, the state says.

“A coyote displaying abnormal behavior and appearing fearless of humans is uncharacteristic and may mean the animal is injured or has fallen victim to a disease, such as rabies, parvovirus or distemper.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2021 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Two coyotes emerge from darkness to chase down deer in Georgia field, video shows."