Conservation officers rescued a white-tailed deer that had fallen on a frozen lake in the Okanagan on Thursday.

The young buck had likely ventured out onto the ice on Duck Lake, near Kelowna, B.C., when it was fleeing from predators.

Conservation officer Ed Seitz found the deer 250 metres off shore and unable to get up. He and another officer pushed a flat bottom boat out towards the deer and used a tranquilizer dart to sedate the animal.

The deer was then put on the boat and taken back to shore.

Seitz said the animal wouldn't have survived out on the ice on its own.

"The hypothermia would have taken over and exhaustion and fatigue," he said. "And that is when probably at nightfall, the coyotes would have made their way out there, because it is pretty easy travelling for them, so they would have basically had the deer at an advantage."

The deer has now been released into the wild.