Deer spotted wearing high-visibility safety jacket in Northern B.C.

Andrea Arnold is used to having to slow down to let deer cross the road in her Northern B.C. community. But this weekend she saw something that made her pull over and snap a photo.

A deer was wearing a high-visibility safety jacket. Not a vest, a "full-on jacket" that has been zipped up, says Arnold, who lives in McBride and is a reporter for the local paper the Rocky Mountain Goat.

"They're everywhere around town, but this one was wearing high-vis. I did a double, triple take like, 'Wait, what am I actually seeing here?'" Arnold told CTV News.

Since posting photos of the deer in a Facebook group, Arnold says she's received a lot of entertaining comments in response – but no information about how the deer ended up in the jacket or who may be responsible.

"People do feed the deer in town, which is a public nuisance and safety concern. So far, nobody's been able to truly stop that, but the idea that somebody has tamed one enough in order to (do this). I mean, I put clothes on my dog. She fights me, and she trusts me," Arnold says.

Photo submitted by Andrea Arnold, a reporter with the Rocky Mountain Goat newspaper.

Sgt. Eamonn McArthur with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service says he's hoping to get more information from people in McBride about the deer so he can figure out the best way to proceed.

"I don't even want to speculate on how that might have happened. They're not predisposed to wearing clothes" he says.

"Even if you can get close enough to the wildlife to put it in a sweater or a jacket or boots or what have you, we recommend highly against that."

The jacket – a piece of safety gear for humans – is, McArthur notes, potentially dangerous to the deer. The biggest risk is that the jacket will get caught on something and the deer will panic when trying to get free, potentially injuring itself.

The best-case scenario, McArthur says, is that the jacket will rip and fall off. If conservation officers get enough tips from the public to locate the deer and confirm it is wearing a jacket, the approach would be to try to get close enough to tranquilize it so the jacket can be safely removed.

Harassing wildlife, an offence under BC.'s Wildlife Act, means to "worry, exhaust, fatigue, annoy, plague, pester, tease or torment" an animal.

This part of the legislation, McArthur notes, does not explicitly mention putting clothing or accessories on wild animals – but he says doing that would qualify.

"We just advise people to keep their distance from all wildlife," he says.

"In general, animals get stressed out when you get that close to them. And we want to try and limit stresses on nature as much as possible."

Anyone who sees the deer is urged to steer clear and call the BCCOS hotline at 1-877-952-7277.