It’s that time of year again – the forest is filled with fawns! There’s a good chance you’ve already come across one of our little spotted deer friends this season, and we’ve got some critical advice and resources for you so you can help keep them safe.
We’ve opened up a new fawn hotline that puts you directly in contact with our fawn specialist, Jessica Metzger, who has years of experience rehabilitating fawns and beyond. You can reach her at 570-979-1363 and she will be happy to answer any questions.
It is critical that you reach out before taking action to interact with a fawn. In many cases it may appear a fawn is in need of assistance, when in fact they are simply waiting for their mother to return. Jessica has this wisdom to share:
“Call the hotline, tell me what you’re seeing, and we can better determine what’s actually going on and if it truly needs help. I understand, they’re adorable. We as humans wouldn’t dream of leaving our babies alone for hours to fend for themselves, but deer are different, and this is what cervid mothers do to keep their babies alive. Last year, almost every year, most of the fawns we got were just straight-up kidnapped. For the first two months, mom leaves them alone mostly all day. She feeds them two to four times a day, and leaves them alone. They’re not coordinated now, they can’t outrun a predator, so their best defense is to just lay there very still and hope you don’t notice them. It works pretty well. Dead leaves and brush are a really good camouflage. The closer they are to human structures, the farther away they are from natural predators. The tradeoff is, now they’re more visible and we’re seeing more of them. They lay up against somebody’s porch, garage, deck, and we think, something’s wrong. People think they’re doing the right thing by rescuing a fawn, but if nothing is wrong, they’re actually doing the opposite. Capture myopathy is very, very painful. It’s the stress response. The only time they’re being handled in the wild is if a predator is picking them up. So when humans touch them, they shut down, causing permanent muscle damage. If it hits their lungs or heart, it is fatal. It can take from a couple of minutes, and they pass away easily, all the way to three months later from sustained muscle damage in heart and lungs. That damage is permanent. That’s it. No treatment, no fixing it. So when it happens, long term, that’s rough because you don’t know when it’s coming. If it’s on the ground with its legs tucked under, it’s probably OK. If it calls out softly a few times and then settles down and sleeps it off for an hour or so, it’s probably OK. That’s normal. If it’s flat on its side, however, with legs straight out, or flies around it, or it’s dirty from being in its own feces or urine because mom hasn’t been around to clean it, or it’s crying out in despair and doesn’t take a break, it’s go time. I tell people to wait 24 hours, as difficult as it is, because one, make sure mom’s not staying away because she thinks it’s not safe, or two, she could be further away than normal. So wait for her to get back, and three, you really want to give that overnight aspect to it. That’s when she’ll return anyway.”
As you can tell, Jessica knows her stuff! So when you see a fawn in the wild and aren’t sure if they are in need of help, give Jessica a call at 570-979-1363 before you do anything!
Thank you to our friends at Lehigh Valley News for covering this story! You can read more on their website:
Oh, Deer! New Fawn Hotline Keeping Spotted Babies Alive by Christine Sexton
The post New Fawn Hotline! appeared first on The Wilderz at Pocono Wildlife.