Fish and Wildlife officers urging Albertans not to touch newborn fawns
LETHBRIDGE – It’s high time for deer to be giving birth to their fawns, and Fish and Wildlife officers are urging Albertans to leave the newborns alone.
Jim Mitchell, inspector with Lethbridge’s Fish and Wildlife enforcement branch, says that there are growing calls from people who find the youngsters thinking they’ve been abandoned.
He explained that it’s highly uncommon for does to abandon their babies. However, they will leave them for extended periods of time in order to forage for food.
Fawns are equipped with spots for camouflage and are born scentless to keep predators from finding them, according to Mitchell.
But he says the consequences can be dire if a fawn is touched or moved by a human.
“If you pick it up, then chances are fairly good that the mother will abandon the fawn… We have pretty limited resources to be able to deal with fawns that are picked up, just due to the proximity of the area. So, in certain cases, the fawn will have to be destroyed if we can’t get it to a rehabilitation centre,” Mitchell explained.
“Certain places in southern Alberta, they’re in what’s called chronic wasting disease zones, and then we can’t take them to other portions of the province.”
The youngsters can be born just about anywhere, from your front yard to down in the coulees, Mitchell noted. In fact, he told Lethbridge News Now that one was recently found in a local school field.
If you come across a newborn fawn, Mitchell says the best thing to do is to keep dogs away from it and simply leave the area. Some does can be very protective of their young and have been known to attack, in some cases.
“The only time that it’s pretty obvious is if the doe has been hit by a vehicle and killed, and then the fawns are left abandoned… But if you see the fawns laying out in the bush, there’s a 99-per cent chance that they have not been abandoned by their mothers,” he said.
Mitchell added that there is no need to contact your local Fish and Wildlife office about a lone fawn, unless you know the mother has been killed.
