North Jersey Media Group/Record: It’s fawning time. And time to learn how to handle (ie, don’t) spotted waifs
Once upon a time I opened the front door and was astonished to see a small spotted cat curled up on the welcome mat. No! That’s no cat – it had absurdly long legs curled under it, and huge ears. It was a newborn fawn. Its instincts kept it motionless. I took a picture and closed the door (alas, dunno where the photo file has gone). We left it alone. Didn’t know what else to do. Then a doe hanging out in the yard with a second fawn made a noise or something . The baby rattled to its feet and teetered off.
I thought of that when New York writer Karen Frenkel forwarded to ksjtracker a story with some of the same elements. Enjoy, have a good weekend:
- North Jersey media / Record – Jack Hope: If you find a fawn ….
- Charlie Petit
June 19th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
In addition to a mother attempting to protect her new borns from predators, she may also try to protect herself from humans. I would think that if a human went over and tried to remove the fawn, the mother would smell the scents left by humans and potentially abandon her fawn.
For the most part, humans are very soft hearted and believe that we need to save everything. We also think that we understand situations, based on the very limited background of information we have gathered from movies and TV shows. It is usually better to leave baby animals alone, unless you have witnessed it getting struck by a car or some other activity that would require medical attention.