Leave Sisters Country fawns alone

Each year at about this time, wildlife rehabilitator Tracy Leonhardy deals with the same problem: caring for fawns mistakenly picked up as "abandoned."

"The good news is the fawns I have to take care of is way down compared to previous years," said Leonhardy. "The phone is still ringing off the hook about fawns - especially when the ODFW office is closed - but people are asking the right questions, and those are the calls I like to get."

And what are the "right" questions?

1. Do you think the fawn in my backyard has been abandoned? 2. Should I leave it where it is? 3. Should I call you if it's still there in 24 hours?

All that is a lot better than "I have a fawn; what should I do with it?" says Leonhardy.

ODFW has also noticed the drop in fawns at rehab facilitates. This spring, Leonhardy has only two fawns, one from Klamath Falls, and the other from Bend, and both are legitimate orphans; the mom of the baby from Bend literally dropped dead in a homeowner's driveway.

"The little guy from K-Falls was in shock and pretty flat when it came in," Tracy said, "but it slowly responded to IV-fluids and bounced up in about a week."

People who see fawns alone in the forest or field should stay well away from them. Wildlife biologists say again and again, walk the other way and forget them. Mother deer will come back to get the little ones quicker when there is no human scent to make her nervous.

Tracy and her partner in rehab, Valerie McKie of Tumalo, have been experimenting with different types of "releases" when the fawns are ready to go into the wild. The technique they have found that seems to work best is the "soft release," where a fawn is left to wander away from the rehab facility on its own.

"That's not possible where I am," Leonhardy said. "The highway is too close and there are too many fences, but Val's place is perfect."

The soft releases McKie made has led to her charges meeting up with other fawns of the same age and mixing in, often to the point where a fawn raised in the rehab facility will become spooked by the person who raised it.

"And that's the best news!" Leonhardy said.

Imprinting, a sociobiological behavior of wildlife raised by humans, is often a difficult trait to contend with. One little buck that Tracy raised couldn't shake its dependency on humans. Even after being released in an area where there were many opportunities to mingle with youngsters its own age, it could not adjust to the wild because of imprinting.

The deer eventually injured a man with a walker near Redmond and had to be euthanized.

One of the animals Tracy worries about - in addition to those fawns that some people will not leave alone - are raccoons. In some areas, raccoons raised in captivity are so imprinted on people that they return with their families later on and raise havoc with their benefactors.

For that reason, both she and wildlife biologists urge people to leave baby raccoons where they are.

Leonhardy notes that, "In nature, there are two wildlife species that can adjust to changes within their environment; the raccoon and the coyote. State law prohibits rehabbing coyotes, and Mother Nature's laws can handle the welfare of raccoons."