If unarmed, seize the deer by the antlers before he touches your vitals, hold on for all you are worth, and shout for help. Keep your feet, just as long as you possibly can. Never mind being threshed about, so long as you keep your feet and keep the tines out of your vitals. Your three hopes are (1) that help will come, (2) or that you can come within reach of a club or some shelter, or (3) that the animal will in some manner decide to desist,—a most forlorn hope.
With a good club, or even a stout walking-stick, you have a fighting chance. As the animal lowers his head and comes close up to impale you on his spears of bone, hit him a smashing blow across the side of his head, or his nose. In a desperate situation, aim at the eye, and lay on the blows. If your life is in danger from a buck elk or a large deer, do not hesitate about putting out an eye for him. What are a thousand deer eyes compared with a twelve inch horn thrust through your stomach? My standing instructions to our keepers of dangerous animals are: "Save your own life, at all hazards. Don't let a dangerous animal kill you. Kill any animal rather than let it kill you!"
It is useless to strike a charging deer on the top of its head, or on its antlers. Give a sweeping side blow for the unprotected cheek and jaw, or the tender nose. There is nothing that a club can do that is so disconcerting as the eye and nose attack, for a badly injured eye always shuts both eyes, automatically. Once when alone in the corral of the axis deer herd, I was treacherously and wantonly attacked by a full-grown buck. I had violated my own rules about going in armed with a stick, and it was lucky for me that the axis deer was not as large as the barasingha or the mule deer. As the buck lowered his head, threw his long, sharp beams straight forward, and pushed for my vitals, I seized him by both antlers, to make my defense. At that he drove forward and nearly upset me. Quickly I let go the right antler and shifted myself to the animal's left side, where by means of the left antler I pulled the struggling buck's head around to my side. Then he began to plunge. Throwing the weight of my chest upon his shoulders I reached over him and with my free hand finally grasped his right foreleg below the knee, and pulled it up clear of the ground. With that I had him.
He tried to struggle free, but I was strong in those days, and angry besides, and he was helpless. Up beside the deer barn, most providentially for the finish, I saw a very beautiful barrel stave. It was the very thing! I worked him over to it, caught it up, and then still holding him by his left antler I laid that stave along his side until he was well punished, and glad when released to rush from that neighborhood.
Female "pet" deer, and female elk, can and do put up dangerous fights with their front hoofs, standing high up on their hind legs and striking fast and furiously. A gentleman of my acquaintance was thus attacked, most unexpectedly, by his pet white-tailed deer doe. She struck about a dozen times for his breast, and his vest and coat were slit open in several places. I once saw two cow elk engage with their front feet in a hot fight, but they did no real damage.
Of course an angry bison, buffalo or gaur lowers its head in attacking a man, and seeks to gore and toss him at the same moment. The American bison will start at a distance of ten or twenty yards, and with half lowered head jump forward, grunting "Uh! Uh! Uh!" as he comes. When close up he pauses for a second and poises his head for the toss. That is the man's one chance. At that instant he must strike the animal on the side of his head, and strike hard; and the region of the eye is the spot at which to aim.
Once we were greatly frightened by the determined charge of a savage cow bison upon Keeper McEnroe, who was armed with a short- handled 4-tine pitchfork. As she grunted and came for him we could not refrain from shouting a terrorized warning, "Look out, McEnroe! Look out!"
He looked out. He stood perfectly still, and calmly awaited the onset. The cow rushed close up, and dropped her chin low down for the goring toss. The keeper was ready for her. Swinging his pitchfork he delivered a smashing blow upon the left side of the cow's head, which disconcerted and checked her. Before she could recover herself he smashed her again, and again. Then she turned tail and ran, followed by the shouts of the multitude.
Adult male elephants are among the most dangerous of all wild animals to keep in captivity. They will grow bad- tempered with adult age, keepers will become careless of danger that is present every day, and a bad elephant often is a cunning and deceitful devil. The strength of an elephant is so great, the toughness of its hide is so pronounced, and the danger of a sudden attack is so permanent that life in a park with a "bad" elephant is one continuous nightmare.
Naturally we have been ambitious to prevent all manner of fatal wild beast attacks upon our keepers. We try our best to provide for their safety, and having done that to the limit we say: "Now it is up to you to preserve your own life. If you can not save yourself from your bad animals, no other person can do it for you!"