I was able to rescue a doe from a barbed wire fence last fall. I was in the yard and heard something "twang" the taught fence by my neighbors pond. Went to check it out and the doe was standing there with only her front hooves touching the ground, rear hooves were off the ground about a foot with the top strand of wire tight under the rear of her belly. After cutting the top strand of wire when she hit the ground  she was immeaditely up and running.

have to agree with homerdave...nature is nature...it's indifferent. It has no interest one way or the other in whether or not the deer/elk lives or dies. Barbed wire on the other hand can be nasty stuff..

I found an old home place on public hunting land here about 20 yrs. ago with what I guess was an old well. Nothing visible above ground, just a hole 4 ft. across. Don't know how deep it was, water level about 2 ft. below ground level. I could see what was left of a deer floating in it.
 If I hadn't been paying attention, might have fell in it myself. I piled some brush around it (well back from the edge) to keep anyone else from stumbling into it.

A philosophical point- Mankind and our devices are part of nature, too. We all live together on this planet. They get us back by jumping in front of our vehicles and making our insurance rates go up.