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What to Do (and Not Do) If You Find a Baby Deer

May 26, 2018 By Robin Strong Elton 3 Comments

It’s that time of year! Keep a keen eye and in many parts of the country you’ll see mama deer with their fuzzy fawns. You may also encounter a fawn that appears to be abandoned, and not know how to intervene. Here’s what to do if you find a baby deer.

photo via Depositphotos

So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight. “And dear me, you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

―Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

In my area (Delaware/southern Pennsylvania), fawning season peaks somewhere around the last week of May through the first weeks of June. I love seeing the baby deer visiting our yard with their mothers— it seems to usually be two fawns for every mama— and I’m always a little tense about their safety on our windy, rural road where everyone tends to drive too fast.

It’s also the time of year when calls to the Division of Wildlife about abandoned fawns tends to peak, probably because people aren’t aware of certain deer facts and how mother deer take care of their young.

Fawns don’t have a scent when they’re born; it’s an important survival tactic. Their white spots act as camouflage in tall grass. Their mothers will leave them alone as much as possible to protect them from predators, as they are safer on their own than with the mother drawing attention to them (and they’re not able to run away quickly enough to avoid any predators that do happen to notice them).

The fawns will often change their hiding spot on their own. The mother probably isn’t far away though and will find her easily, as fawns do need to feed frequently.

So what do you do if you find a baby deer?

The answer is simple: nothing.

If you touch the fawn, you’ll be marking her with your scent and making her vulnerable.

If you move the fawn, you’re separating her from her mother and possibly damaging their relationship during a critical imprinting period—the baby could very well imprint on a human and this can actually cause the mother to abandon it. (Baby deer start traveling with their mother somewhere around two months of age.)

Unfortunately, deer that are raised by people don’t have a great survival rate upon release. The skills they need in the wild just can’t be taught by humans. And in some spots taking in or attempting to rehabilitate wildlife is illegal: here in PA, there is a fine of up to $1,500 per animal and in most cases the animal will be euthanized. In all cases the animal will be confiscated. And be aware, it violates both state and federal laws to transport wildlife between states.

It’s a bummer for sure, and there’s no shortage of YouTube videos that make befriended wildlife seem like the best thing ever. I want a pet deer or fox or crow as much as anyone (probably more, honestly) but in most scenarios the best decision is to let nature take its course.

Something like a quarter to one half of fawns born every year here in Pennsylvania won’t grow to adulthood. It’s the circle of life. Those deer also play an important part in the ecosystem, and frankly there are more deer than the area can support anyway. Better to become food in a natural manner than growing older and being hit by a car, right? Right. (But here’s what to do if you do hit one.)

Book Review: Hey, Baby! A Collection of Pictures, Poems, and Stories from Nature’s Nursery

December 10, 2017 By Robin Strong Elton Leave a Comment

Hey, Baby! A Collection of Pictures, Poems, and Stories from Nature’s Nursery comes from National Geographic Kids. It’s like Eric Carle’s Animals, Animals meets Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories meets animal encyclopedia, with the beautifully detailed presentation of a nature documentary. It’s genuinely enjoyable bedtime reading to help foster a love of animals and the world they live in.

To know a thing we must love it,
and to love a thing we must know it.

-Kitaro Nishida (Japanese philosopher)

Disclosure: I received this product for free from Moms Meet, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms Meet blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my honest opinion on my blog. The opinions posted are my own.

Did you know a baby zebra is called a fool?!

How about that a polar bear can smell a seal from a mile away?

Have you heard the aboriginal folktale that explains how the kookaburra got his laugh? (Much to the eternal shame of the showoff lyrebird.)

I’ve written a number of times about the importance of teaching kids about— and exposing them to— nature and its inhabitants, early and often. I mean, we all do this intuitively to some extent; we take them to the park and jump in leaf piles, we go to the zoo and point out the giraffe’s long neck, we hug puppies and feed ducks, we ask them what does a lion say? to hear their adorable roar.

In those posts, I’ve always stressed helping kids to know nature and animals, because when they know how insects fit in the food chain, they’ll care about preserving them for the sake of the birds and small mammals. When they know the call of a crow and see how clever and funny they are, they’ll notice when numbers dwindle and act to preserve them. When they have the opportunity to look a loggerhead turtle in the eye, conserving the ocean has more urgency, more meaning.

I’d never really thought about how it works the other way too, but it does. How do we inspire kids to want to know the animals and their habitats? We foster a love of them: we spend time as a family at the aquarium, or birdwatching, or playing in the ocean, creating memories. We talk about what our favorite animals are. We buy stuffed animals to snuggle with at night. We invite pets into our homes. And we do one of my favorite things.

We read to them.

Organized by habitat, the book is full of the amazing photography and fascinating animal facts you’d expect from National Geographic. Each page highlights a different (super cute, obviously) baby animal and tells you their “baby name” (pup, eaglet, calf, etc), where they grow up and what they eat.

What sets it apart, and makes it ideal for bedtime reading, is the snackable nature of the facts shared. Plus there are animal poems, fables and folktales from around the world, and stories of animal friendships and successful rescues/rehabs. At the end of each section is a “Tot Lot,” a photo gallery of baby animals with a quick bit of trivia about each.

All in all, it’s a visual and lyrical treasure. A wealth of information, surrounded by beautiful pictures of adorable baby animals, wrapped up in wonderfully readable stories just right for sharing with kids.

(I feel it’s important to point out that my kids were all, at one point or another, obsessed with a particular animal encyclopedia we had that is intended for children. I gamely read that to them at bedtime, but it wasn’t fun reading for me; it was— well, it was reading pages from an encyclopedia every night for like a month. Hey, Baby! is a totally different experience from that. I read it cover to cover and genuinely enjoyed every page, making note of different stories and authors I want to follow up on.)

The book is a coffee table book, nice and big, perfect to hold together with your child while reading. It would be a great gift for any little, but exceptional as a baby shower or welcome-to-the-world present (I’m a BIG fan of giving lovely keepsake hardbacks to babies, so that they grow up seeing it on a shelf until they are old enough to have it read to them, and then one day read themselves, and eventually hand down to another baby. Most babies get more clothes and toys from other people than they will ever fully use).

Extra incentive! Purchases of National Geographic Kids books support the exploration, research, and conservation efforts of the National Geographic Society.

You can find Hey, Baby! A Collection of Pictures, Poems, and Stories from Nature’s Nursery pretty much everywhere— at traditional bookstores like Barnes & Noble; local independent stores; Target, Costco, Walmart, etc; and of course online on sites like amazon.com and shopng.com/books.

National Geographic online for more good stuff:

kids.nationalgeographic.com
National Geographic Kids on Facebook and Twitter

City Birds, Country Birds: Who’s Smarter?

November 30, 2017 By Robin Strong Elton Leave a Comment

He imagines a necessary joy in things that must fly to eat.

―Wendell Berry

I’m fascinated by birds, I always have been. When you grow up in the city, your most intimate encounters with wildlife are with the birds and the squirrels, and my dad and I would often feed both while waiting at the bus stop. He taught me the chickadeedeedeedee of the black-capped chickadee, the pritty! pritty! of the cardinal, the scratchy screech of his favorite, the blue jay. Every so often he’d stop me from talking, finger pointed in the air, and we’d listen to the far-off drumming of a woodpecker.

When we moved out of the city, the number of bird species I was surrounded by grew and so did my fascination with them. In particular, the crows, who congregate out in my front yard every morning and have an uncanny ability to know when I’m trying to take their picture— it’s been a whole decade and I still haven’t captured anything worth posting.

Did you know…

that I’m constantly being trolled by mockingbirds imitating the sound of cats meowing and babies crying? Blue jays and crows are also good mimics.
not all songbirds sing. Females of some species keep mum so as not to attract attention to their nests.
a lot of bird species mate for life.
during mating season the males of some species go somewhat insane with aggression and will attack their own reflection in windows.
goslings start to communicate with their parents while still in the egg.
some birds use tools, have excellent memories and show emotions like anger and sadness.
some “teenage” birds will stay with their parents and help take care of the next litter of hatchlings before striking out on their own and starting a new family.

Now, in the Aesop fable, the country mouse goes off to visit the city mouse, he’s blown away by how plentiful food is there, but after a run-in with a cat ultimately decides it’s smarter to live in the country; “a modest life with peace and quiet is better than a rich one with danger and strife.” Smart, huh?

Maybe not as smart as we thought, as research suggests that city birds are smarter than country birds.

Basically, while country birds use the same methods as generations before them to find food and stay safe, city birds learn to adapt and it makes them smarter. The study, which was conducted at the McGill Bellairs facility in Barbados, captured bullfinches from different parts of the island: some of these areas are virtually untouched, while others are developed and “urban.” The urban birds not only performed better at problem-solving tests, but they were bolder and had better immunity. You do what you gotta do to survive, I guess.

Reminds me of this video of crows using cars to crack open difficult nuts— at pedestrian crossings so it’s safer for them to retrieve them.

Where all this becomes particularly interesting to me is the broader questions it poses: how should we define “smart,” really? It comes as no surprise that necessity and exposure to novel stimuli would push any species to become more innovative at problem solving, and I wonder if the increased immunity is a response to the extra stress all that would put on the body.

On the flip side, there’s a good body of evidence that green surroundings promote creativity, which is a harder thing to quantify in animals; it also reduces stress, so there would be no need for increased immunity.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, if you want to take something away from a bird study and apply it to your own life, I think it should be this:

Make sure you and your kids are always exposing yourselves to new things and new opportunities to learn. Be bold. But don’t feel like you’re necessarily missing out because you’re not experiencing the constant stimuli of the city. There are a lot of different ways to be smart, and also you are not a bird. 🙂