Story of Arkansas woman raising deer indoors stems from satire

The story has been reshared across social media platforms without relevant context

(Reuters) - An amusing story about the arrest of an Arkansas resident named Bridgette Watkins who allegedly raised deer indoors with the intention of training them to attack hunters is not real and originated on a satire page.

The story has been reshared across social media platforms without relevant context by users who mistook the story as a real incident. The content is visible on Facebook posts and Twitter with the prefix “Only in Arkansas!!!” (here), (here) and (here).

The story and the photos could be traced to a Facebook post from a parody account that describes its content as satirical

(here).

The bio of the Facebook page, called Arkansas Game Fish, reads, “Satire page just for laughs.”

(here). The page also posted a disclaimer saying “This is a satire page” just hours before sharing the Bridgette Watkins story (here).

The page appears to be a parody of an Arkansas government agency: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (www.facebook.com/ARGameandFish).

The administrator of the parody account told Reuters over email the post was meant as a joke.

“To be honest the idea behind the page was to give some locals a good laugh,” he added. “I never expected it to blow up the way it did but I feel like I definitely succeeded in entertaining the public.”

The photos used in the post are old and unrelated to any recent events in Arkansas.

The mugshot is from a February 2022 arrest by Indiana State Police and shows a woman taken into custody over drug charges and erratic driving (here).

A second photo of a deer peering into the camera is from January 2019 and shows a large doe that jumped through a window and entered a home in Ontario, Canada, as reported by multiple Canadian outlets (here), (here).

VERDICT

Satire. The story about Bridgette Watkins who was arrested after raising deer and feeding them meth is not real and was shared as a joke by a parody account.