(NOTE: This story was published by the Batavia News on Saturday, May 25, 2024)
by Fr. Matt Kawiak
I get a text from my wife Susan that says: “I need your help!” At that moment, I am in the tractor garage and notice that she is pulling into the car garage and inside the passenger seat I am shocked to see a baby fawn jumping around from the passenger to the driver seat.
Sue shared that as she pulling into our driveway from the busy highway. This fawn was running down the hill toward the busy state highway and she would have surely been killed by a tractor trailer. Instead, when Sue spotted the fawn, she got of her the car and the fawn came bleeping up to her. She immediately picked it up out of harms way and put it into the car.
The next question in this trauma response is how to you get this fawn to reconnect with its momma? Sue called her friend Shana, who is a USDA trainer, and Shana drove over immediately and started checking online to check how best to care for this lost fawn.
Sue told me to get a large kitty cage and we put the fawn inside for safety. Sue noticed that it was hot and she soaked some towels in cold water. In the meantime, Shana checked its ears to see if it was dehydrated.
She started a search online for a deer rehabilitator. With one phone call, this kind volunteer requested we take a photo of the fawn so she could assess its condition. She shared it looked like a newborn and in good shape. Her next recommendation was to forward “the sound a fawn makes” when it is lost. On her cell phone, Sue was told to walk back to where she found the fawn and turn up the volume and blast the sound of the newborn fawn cry over the fields so that the mother would return to find its baby.
Imagine, Sue is walking along the driveway along the side of the woods holding her cell phone over her head as the sound of the fawn can be heard throughout the woods, Shana is carrying the newborn fawn in a blanket in her arms while the bleeping sound can be heard throughout the fields
I am the walking behind, scouting for momma when suddenly a deer darts out of the woods, she notices the two women and jumps back into the shrubs.
We now know that momma deer is nearly. Sue and Shana turn around and walk away from the main highway toward an open meadow with the sound of a bleeping fawn leading the way. Once in the open meadow with high grasses, Shana places the fawn on the ground and starts walking away. However, our little friend follows Shana back to the house. So, she picks up our lost fawn and walks further out into the meadow. We continue to scout for momma as the bleeping continues and this time the fawn is gently placed in higher grasses so Shana can walk away when it was not looking.
We were exhausted form the tension, but satisfied that once moved away from the open field with the fawn lying still in the grasses, momma would pick up the scent and the sound of her lost fawn and she would take her baby back to safety and home to safer fields.
We were grateful for the quick and accurate helpful advice from the deer rehabilitator. In my cell phone contact list, I now have a deer rehabilitator listing.
One never knows when God will call upon you to save a poor lost soul. It might be a child, a relative or neighbor or in this case a newborn fawn who lost its momma.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who volunteer as deer rehabilitator, or animal shelter volunteer and work tirelessly to save the orphan animals in our community from harms way. We need more good people who stop what they are doing and come to rescue of those in need in their moment of crisis. Thank you for your kind and generous service. If you like to help stray animals at the animal shelter, contact Volunteerr4Animals at (585) 343-6410 option 7 or info@vol4animals.org
