Leave fawns alone

People who pick up fawns in the woods may be sentencing them to death.

Tracy Leonhardy of Sisters takes care of orphaned fawns for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. So far this season, she has received nine animals. Seven have died.

Four of the fawns were found by people walking in the woods. These well-meaning folks mistakenly thought the fawns were lost or had been abandoned.

They took the babies home to raise them themselves.

They did more harm than good. By the time they came to Leonhardy, the fawns were on the edge of survival.

"A deer will hide a fawn in the brush and leave it there for six or more hours. Deer are browsers and must move around to eat. That fawn will not move," said Leonhardy, who volunteers her time and acts with ODF&W and Oregon State Police approval under the license of Jane Stevens of the Tumalo area.

It is an old wives' tale that a mother will not accept a fawn if she can smell a human's touch. Actually, the mother deer will keep searching for the fawn for up to 24 hours, Leonhardy said.

Those who take a fawn home and try to raise it usually don't know how. The problems start immediately with diet.

"Deer are ruminants with four stomachs, but they do not have gall bladders, and cannot easily digest fat. Cow's milk has much too much fat for a fawn to digest," said Leonhardy. The fat-rich diet leads quickly to diarrhea, dehydration and death.

"One person fed a fawn baby formula with iron, which turned to concrete in its stomach," said Leonhardy.

The animal died.

Leonhardy feeds her charges a special blend which includes goat's milk. Even then it is sometimes difficult to get the formula just right.

Of the nine animals Leonhardy has received this year, only three came from situations where the mother had been confirmed dead from highway accidents. Four were found by people walking, one was delivered under questionable circumstances ("it followed my dogs out of the woods," Leonhardy was told), and one was found, with dog bites, next to a dead twin.

Leonhardy thinks the mother of the twins may have been run off by the dogs. She does not think coyotes were the culprits because of the nature and location of the kill. She points out that it is il- legal to let a domestic dog chase deer.

Dogs that run deer can be shot by the authorities.

Those fawns that Leonhardy is able to save are taken to a nine-acre enclosure near the White River on Mt. Hood. There the fawns "essentially learn to be wild deer again. In the spring they open the gates and turn them loose."

So if you are walking in the woods and find a fawn, leave it alone. If it is bleating, making a sound somewhat like a cat, then leave it alone and report the location to the ODF&W at 388-6363.

But don't take it home.