Fact Check: Kancha Gachibowli deer enters human settlement after land clearing? No, video is from Vizag

Hyderabad: The Telangana State government began clearing a 400-acre Kancha Gachibowli land for IT infrastructure and urban projects. This sparked protests from UoH students, environmental activists and political parties. Many took to the internet to express their disappointment regarding the situation.

In this context, a video of a large deer amid human settlements is going viral on social media. The video is being circulated as the aftermath of land being cleared at Kancha Gachibowli, which led to the uprooting of animals’ habitat, causing them to enter human settlements.

Several news outlets and social media accounts are circulating the video with the claim that the video was shot in Hyderabad.

Sharing the video, Andhra Jyothi, a Telugu news outlet, wrote, “Deer in the middle of Hyderabad.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)

Sharing screenshots from the video, an Instagram user wrote, “Wildlife entering human settlements within the HCU area came close to an apartment in the nearby Gopanpally.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)

Posts making similar claims can be found here, here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral claim is false. This is an old video shot in Visakhapatnam, not Hyderabad.

Using reverse image search, we found an Instagram post sharing the viral video. The comments under the video indicated that the video was being wrongly attributed to the land clearing in the Kancha Gachibowli area. A comment read, “That came out of the wildlife conservation area near Kambalakonda in Visakhapatnam.” (Translated from Telugu)

Using this lead, we performed several keyword searches to find instances of deer sightings in human settlements in Visakhapatnam.

We found a Facebook post sharing images of a deer that entered a residential colony in Visakhapatnam. The images were posted on March 14, 2025, with the caption, “Today in Visakhapatnam. I took a photo of a deer roaming the streets from the hilly area in the Visalakshi Nagar area.”

We found the antler pattern and the scarring on the side of the deer from the Facebook post to be the same as the deer from the viral video. A comparison of both images can be found below. It is clear that it is the same deer in both posts.

In the viral video, we can see the name of the apartment building as SS Arcade. Using Google Maps, we found the location of SS Arcade in Visalakshi Nagar of Visakhapatnam. A local resident shared the latest images of SS Arcade apartment taken on the morning of 4 April, 2025.

A comparison of the latest images of the SS Arcade apartment in Visalakshi Nagar of Visakhapatnam and a screenshot from the viral video can be found below.

We have also observed that the SS Arcade apartment is situated very close to the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary. News reports from February stated that the deer in the sanctuary faced risk due to damaged fencing in the sanctuary. The report also stated that the deer tend to stray out of the sanctuary in search of food and water.

Venkata Shastri, a forest range officer from Visakhapatnam, spoke to NewsMeter and confirmed that the viral video was shot in Visalakshi Nagar. He added that deer being spotted in human colonies has become common as the deer population in the Kambalakonda Sanctuary is on the rise, and the old deer, unable to climb hills, stray into nearby human habitats.

Therefore, NewsMeter has concluded that the video of a deer in human settlements is from Visakhapatnam, not Hyderabad.