When Wild Things Come to Visit

Kids, DON'T try this at home. I MEAN IT. Believe it or not, I am a mere two to six days from doing this fawn sincere damage just by holding it. It takes only 3-7 days for a fawn to 'imprint' on humans and have its natural instinct to fear humans irreparably damaged. Although this fawn was not a 'man-made orphan' (snatched from a grassy area where it was perfectly fine, not abandoned at all...) it cannot and MUST not be made into a pet although fawns head in that direction ALL too easily.

This fawn was rescued from a busy road where it was found staggering around, banging into the guard rail at dusk. Deposited into my arms on Memorial Day, he took great comfort in being held and snuggling in my hair and nuzzling my skin. With some love and coaxing, we got him to drink just a little lamb replacer formula, and by the next morning he was standing solidly on his VERY long legs.

He spent the night bedded down on an afghan in my bathroom and the next morning was moved to a lamb pen in the sheep barn and the RESEARCH BEGAN.......

Being instructed that the NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation HAD to be notified since it is illegal to take ANY animal out of the wild (endangered or not....), I began a journey of information-gathering that opened my eyes like little has before.

As I spoke to the gent from the D.E.C., MY focus was on how we are perfectly capable of raising a healthy baby animal. I found that that was only half the story. The other half is raising as close to a 'WILD' animal as possible, and let me tell you, that is HARD. Trained wildlife rehabilitators can fight that urge to cuddle the sweet little Bambi and insist that the fawns make no eye contact, no voice contact and never see the humans who care for them, even at feeding time.

A good friend's son actually worked for Barry Rothfuss, renowned Wildlife Rehabilitator and he talks of pens that are tarped off on three sides and none of the caretakers were ever to walk across the open side. The process of 'hacking out' where the fawns are re-introduced to the wild took WEEKS. Bottle-feeding took place THROUGH the tarp so the fawns did not make the connection between humans and food.

Why is this so important? Two reasons. Where hunting is allowed, a fawn-raiser's good intentions can get that full-grown deer killed, as it doesn't instinctively avoid the humans. Deer raised as 'pets' have been know to become a dreadful (and sometimes frightening) nuisance if they begin following children around because they are used to interacting with humans. A full-grown buck with a full set of antlers whose natural instincts are blurred can become hormonally confused between being drawn to humans and still protecting his territory and his does and can become truly deadly. People have been injured and even killed by bucks they have raised.

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