On Sunday, 10 deer that wandered onto the ice in Wareham Harbor drowned. Unfortunately, it's a common occurrence, at least in Wareham.

"We have this happen all the time," said Harbormaster Garry Buckminster. "Every spring, we find deer that have succumbed to Mother Nature."

Buckminster, along with a team of emergency personnel, spent the better part of four hours trying to rescue several groups of deer that tried to cross the harbor.

Buckminster said three separate groups of deer were involved in the attempted rescue. The first involved four deer that came onto the ice from the Long Beach area. The second involved five deer that came off of the Swifts Beach area. The third incident involved what officials presumed to be three deer off the Stoney Point Dike, though Buckminster said they did not attempt to rescue those deer because they were too far out.

Of the 12 deer presumed to be on the ice, only two were believed to have survived.

"Two that were on the ice were able to get up and out and they made it to shore," he said.

Buckminster said two deer were pulled out of the icy waters were still alive and brought to shore, where emergency personnel put blankets on the deer to heat them up, but to no avail.

"The [Environmental Protection Agency] made the determination to euthanize the animals," he said.

Buckminster said that because of the danger involved with the icy conditions, the determination was made not to put emergency personnel out in the icy waters.

"Salt water is so unstable," he said. "Putting physical humans out there is not worth the risk. Not that we don’t care about the animals, but we have to put human life as a priority."

"This type of thing happens on a regular basis," he added, noting that because it was a Sunday, it was a very visible incident. "Especially when there's ice and the bay freezes over. We find them on the shoreline and we have to dispose of them."