Fact check: No, the white-tailed deer was not spotted on the beach in Odisha

Pictures and videos of animals and birds around the world roaming freely on roads during Coronavirus lockdown are going viral on social media. Particularly the video of a deer happily enjoying itself by spinning and leaping through the waves on a beach is breaking the internet. The video is shared with a claim that the deer was spotted near Chandrabhaga beach in Odisha.

"As humans are caged at home, animals are thoroughly enjoying the opportunity! Somewhere on the sea beach near Chandrabhaga, along the Puri-Konark marine drive road in Odisha."

Several others too have shared the same video with similar captions.

Fact check

Since several videos with a false claim are making rounds on social media, NewsMeter did a fact check to verify the time and location of its upload.

A reverse image search of the video on Google search engine revealed that the video is four years old. It was posted on Facebook in 2015 by a French filmmaker Anthony Martin.

Click here to see the video

Parveen Kaswan, an IFS officer also confirmed the video to be fake since the animal spotted in the video is a wild deer, which is not often spotted in India.

"It's an old video. Also, it is White-tailed deer which is nowhere found in India, leave aside Odisha," he said.

Result

The deer spotted in the video is real. However, the claim that it was shot at a beachside in Odisha and its 2020 lockdown time is FALSE.