Love Me Tender

It’s late spring in Texas — a magical window in time when all sorts of wild critters perpetuate their species by giving birth to little ones.

Sadly, it’s also the season when wildlife biologists, game wardens and wildlife rehabilitators statewide see an uptick in phone calls about young animals believed to be in distress. All too often the calls originate from well-meaning individuals who stumble across deer fawns, fledgling birds and other newborns in the outdoors and remove them from their natural environment thinking they have been abandoned by their mothers. In most instances, that’s not the case at all.

“It happens all the time,” says Dawn Russell of New Summerfield. “People think they are doing young animals a favor by picking them up and taking them home, but in most cases they are doing way more harm than good. Wild animals typically don’t abandon their babies.”

Russell should know. She is one of dozens of volunteer wildlife habilitators around state permitted to care for wildlife through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The rehabbers are listed by county on the TPWD website, tpwd.texas. gov/huntwild/wild/rehab/.

A 14-year veteran, Russell has nursed everything from whitetail fawns to ring-tailed cats. She once took in as many as 63 cottontail rabbits in a single spring and has had as many as 15 white-tailed deer fawns under her care at one time.

Russell estimates she has rehabilitated close to 75 fawns since 2009. Sadly, she believes close to 30 percent of those fawns were robbed from their mothers by well-meaning people who thought they were helping because they thought the animal had been orphaned. She says other rehabbers will likely echo that thought.

“It’s a different story when an animal has fire ants on it or has been injured in some way,” Russell said. “Those animals might need some help. But if the animal is perfectly healthy it should be left alone. Chances are the momma isn’t far away. She may even be watching you kidnap her baby.”

There are a couple of things wrong with that picture.

Most people have no idea how to care for a baby deer. It’s not an animal you can take home and bottle feed powdered milk from the local feed store. These animals require special care. Those that don’t get it will often become sick and die a slow death.

Additionally, it is a violation of state law to remove deer or any other game animal from their natural environment. Get caught in possession of one by a game warden and you could receive a citation, along with a brisk fine.

“A lot people get these animals home and they get sick or find out it’s illegal to have them,” Russell said. “That’s when that animal becomes a hot potato. Whoever has it starts looking to get rid of it.”

Many look to experts like Russell to hand them off.

As earlier mentioned, there are dozens of volunteer wildlife rehabilitators around the state who specialize in caring for small mammals and birds, including raptors. Their job is to care for the animals until they can fend for themselves, then release them into the wild.

It’s worth noting that being wildlife rehabilitator can be a thankless job. No state funding is available for animal caging, veterinary care, medicine or food. Most rehabilitators depend greatly upon donations from the public to help offset the costs associated with rehabilitating injured wildlife.

Lessons Learned Russell lives on her family’s 350-acre ranch Cherokee County. She has a large fawn pen outside her home that is naturally manicured with big rocks, brush and downed trees. The ranch is an ideal release site for wild animals.

Not surprisingly, Russell has learned numerous lessons about raising little ones, and developed some very restrictive release policies over the years.

She says one potential problem to avoid at all costs is human imprinting. A baby deer that is raised by humans will not have the same learned behavior to fear humans that a wild deer will.

Russell says she works hard to make sure her deer do not become so accustomed to humans that they become a burden to someone else after she releases them. She relies heavily on a specially designed “bottle rack” to feed her fawns.

Her brothers designed the rack at the family’s machine shop in Houston. It is crafted so multiple fawns can be fed simultaneously with no human interaction. She says the rack breaks the bond of the fawns being dependent on her for their milk. The device adjusts to different heights to accommodate fawns as they grow.

Russell also makes sure fawns are released into the wild before they reach six months of age. It’s a safety thing.

“The longer they are kept in captivity, the more likely they are to get hurt in the pen,” she said. “Their instincts kick in early on..... being freed enables them to develop the instincts of flight in the threat of danger.”

The Miracle Babies Just about every rehabber is sure to have a special story to share about the animals they have reared. It is doubtful any of them can top the tale about the buck twins Russell reared last spring. She recalls them as her “miracle babies.”

Russell was at home on the afternoon of June 3 when she got a call from a local game warden about a doe that had been hit by a vehicle and killed while crossing State Highway 110 a short distance from her home. The warden told Russell there was reportedly a fawn at the scene.

When Russell arrived, the driver of the vehicle that hit the doe was still there, but there was no fawn in sight. When asked about the whereabouts of the fawn, the man told Russell two women stopped and picked up the newborn off the pavement. They told the man they were nurses and that they were taking the animal to a veterinarian for evaluation.

Russell asked for help dragging the dead doe off the road. Then she asked the man to show her where the animal was at when it crossed the highway.

“I’m not even sure way I asked him that, but looking back I’m sure was God’s intervention,” she said. “When we got to the spot, I just happened to look over into the borrow ditch and there was another fawn. It was curled up in the tall weeds — still wet and slimy, but covered in fire ants.”

Russell used bottled water and a towel to remove the fire ants. Then something really strange happened.

A second man stopped by in a pick-up. He told Russell he was traveling towards the truck that hit the deer at time of the collision. He said he recorded the whole thing on his dash camera.

“It turned out that both of the fawns shot out of the doe when she got hit by the car — they were born on impact,” Russell said. You could see it happen on the dash camera footage. It was very graphic.”

The story gets better. Russell rushed the fawn to her house and placed it on a heating pad. Then she made some calls to local veterinarians and located the whereabouts of the second fawn. She reunited the brothers, then raced back to the scene of the accident with a measuring cup in hand.

There, Russell did something only a salty rehabber would know to do. She milked the dead doe’s teats to gather colostrum to feed the newborn fawns.

Colostrum is the first form of breast milk that is released by the mammary glands after giving birth. It contains all sorts of goodies that are vital to building the fawn’s immune system and preventing disease.

Russell eventually raised both fawns to five-months old before releasing them, but not before giving them fitting names — Cannon and Comet.

“I named that because both of them came flying out of their mother at high rates of speed,” Russell said. “There were truly my miracle babies.” ----- Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.