vampireapologist:pugetprincess:zooophagous:vampireapologist:congenitaldisease:A fawn curled up besid
vampireapologist:pugetprincess:zooophagous:vampireapologist:congenitaldisease:A fawn curled up beside a fake deer which is used for target practice. A lot of people are super upset by this, so here is a reminder from someone who has worked professionally with deer:A fawn tucked down alone like this is almost never an orphan.Fawns are extremely small, and their best defense is to stay hidden as often as possible. Unless they are nursing or moving to a new spot, tucking themselves down in grass or against bigger objects is their best defense.What would be an easy giveaway to a lurking predator that there is a vulnerable baby nearby? A much larger, much more visible adult female deer!To protect her baby, a female deer will avoid the baby most of the day (except to nurse it or move it), and she will keep an eye on the baby from a distance to make sure everything is alright.If you approach a fawn (or god forbid pick it up and take it home), I’d bet money that 9.5 times out of 10, mama is alive and well, watching you from a distance, desperately hoping you’ll move on without hurting her baby.It’s not orphaned, it’s not abandoned.Working in wildlife, if there is one thing I could magically make the entire human population know, it would be this information.Every summer, people show up at wildlife rehabbers, state park offices, ranger stations, and even deer farms, with allegedly orphaned fawns that they’ve “saved.”Tragically, we pretty much have to destroy these animals every time.Deer farms legally cannot take in wild deer because of the extremely dangerous risk of disease transmission to their livestock population (look up chronic wasting disease). Contact with a wild deer could doom their animals and their livelihoods.I have worked on deer farms and in wildlife rehab.Deer are extremely difficult to raise, rehabilitate, and release. Mostly, it’s impossible. Often, they simply refuse to eat from anything but their mother, and we have to decide between letting them waste away for three days or so, or euthanizing them.Deer are also overpopulated in many states now, and we can’t afford the resources to raise them. There are species more in need of our assistance.If you see a fawn all alone, unless it’s next to its dead parent, it’s not an orphan.I am begging you to leave it be.In this case, this fawn is almost certainly fine. It’s just hunkered down like it should be, waiting for Mama.But it does make for a great photo!I’ve seen this photo circulating with people assuming a hunter has killed this animal’s mother, and one more thing to note: baby fawns are born in late spring and summer. Hunting season doesn’t open till autumn. By the time it’s legal for you to shoot any deer, there are no spotted fawns left, they grow up and lose their coats fairly quickly. Hunting season takes place close to the deer’s mating season, by which time they’re more concerned with making new fawns than mothering current ones. (There are some areas where you can get a subsistence hunting permit for other times of year but that’s generally only in areas where poor rural people need to be able to hunt to have food)vampireapologist While I too would deeply discourage anyone from disturbing a wild fawn, as their best chance at survival is with their own mother… I too have worked in wildlife rehab and we successfully fed and released dozens of fawns every year. We never had fawns refuse to eat. That seems like purposeful misinformation to scare people into not touching the fawns. (PSA: Don’t touch the fawns.)We have lost more than a few fawns that refused to take a bottle. However, I only worked with deer for two seasons (before moving to raptor rehab), at the same location. There could very well have been a specific reason that some fawns were refusing to eat. However, I was not in the position to do any relevant investigations or research beyond trying to find new and creative ways to encourage them.I suppose this was an overgeneralizing statement based on my experience in one place, but definitely not purposeful misinformation! Thanks for your addition! -- source link