Deer Swims with the Seals at Maritime Aquarium

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Seal feedings at Norwalk's  always draw an audience at the South Norwalk facility, but Tuesday afternoon a four-legged visitor became an added attraction.

While staff member Vicki Sawyer was in the midst of feeding the seals, the crowd pointed out that a deer had jumped into the outside portion of the indoor-outdoor tank.

The seals, which are skittish anyway of anything new to their environment, were kept in the inside portion of the tank by staff members using poles, said aquarium publicist David Sigworth.

Spoken with by phone Wednesday afternoon, Sigworth said the tank's two entrances from outdoors have walls that extend beneath the surface of the water, so the deer would have had to submerge to get into the building.

Sigworth said staff members also directed visitors outdoors to enter the building so the deer didn't find itself surrounded by a noisy, animated crowd.

The tank's water level was then raised to the top of the tank's walls and an access door to the tank was opened, Sigworth said. The deer managed to get its four legs over the tank's walls, and a staff member grabbed it by "the scruff of the neck" and pulled it out, he said.

Apparently uninjured, the deer ran off and presumably jumped back into the Norwalk River, Sigworth said. The back half of the aquarium's property is completedly surrounded by fences, so the deer's only access would have been from the river, he said.

Sigworth said the entire incident probably lasted 20 to 30 minutes.

Several visitors shot video of the event and posted them on YouTube.