Rehabbed deer released

Last Monday was a bittersweet moment for Tracy Leonhardy and Judy Neidzwicje at Bob and Gayle Baker's Rim Rock Ranch.

Four mule deer bucks and one doe were trucked from Tracy and Judy's rehab facility in Bend, Wildside Rehabilitation, to the the Rim Rock Ranch in Mike and Sue Floydd's horse trailer for the start of the deers' next great adventure.

All five deer came to Wildside in big trouble, having been separated from their mothers by accident and picked up by well-meaning but misguided people. It is very difficult not to become attached to wildlife babies, as you have to care for them almost 24/7 if they're going to live. That's the predicament the volunteers at all rehab facilities face: Getting too close to your charges.

As the juvenile deer hopped out of the trailer on unfamiliar ground, they immediately looked around them at this strange place, and then spotted their surrogate mother, Judy Neidzwicje, waiting for them. With an almost audible sigh of relief they gathered around Judy, who in turn, took them on a quiet hike through their new home, to get them acquainted with the habitat and relaxed.

Tracy laughed as she watched the deer gather around Judy.

"This year's release is the opposite of 2012," she said. "When Mike dropped the tailgate of the trailer, you could almost hear those deer shout, "Let's get outta here!' and out they came, and away across the fields and they went, and never looked back!"

As the deer flew out of the trailer, Judy and the small group of friends stood there, open-mouthed, then Judy said, "Our babies are gone! Tracy and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders...

"Oh well, this is what we came to do," she said to Tracy. "Did we not think they would respond to the call of the wild? They don't need us any more; wasn't that the goal? When they realized there were no fences to restrict their ability to run, they took off in joyful frolic -out of sight, out of mind."

The attachment to humans, especially the caregivers, is almost impossible to prevent. The fawns were bottle-fed four times a day at first. As they grow, the frequency was reduced to three times a day, then two, then one until they were weaned in September.

The caregivers gathered bitterbrush for them, which is their primary diet in the wild.

"The fawns LOVE bitterbrush!" Judy said, holding a bundle in her hand for one of the fawns to nibble on. "It looks like a nasty dry weed to me but it is their food of choice and a nutritional necessity for deer."

As part of the diet adjustment, the deer were put out on a fenced grass pasture during the day. At night they were locked up in a sheltered predator-proof pen with free choice access to grass hay. Later, a commercial deer pellet was added to their diet as they were being weaned off their milk.

"At about $30/day, I'm pretty happy they're going," Judy said, watching the young deer getting acquainted with drinking water from the pond.

To teach the fawns things that they would have learned from traveling with their mother, Judy took them for walks around the Wildside facility, where the fawns investigated everything. They followed her around the property, smelling and tasting vegetation they had never seen before. They encountered running water and learned to cross it.

Co-founders of Wildside Rehab, Tracy Leonhardy and Valerie McKie, have released many fawns at Rim Rock Ranch over the years, and have a special feeling for the place. Occasionally the rehabbers have meet up with one of their charges, as a doe comes to show them her fawns during a release - a sort of grandparents day.

The only threat to the deer's safety at the ranch is the possibility their meeting up with a hungry cougar. Instinct may help them avoid capture, but that depends on how hungry the cougar may be.

All in all, rehabbing wildlife is an example of how humans care for fellow creatures that share the beauty of the earth with them.