When people and nature collide

Spring has passed us now, which means that most baby mammals and birds are well on their way to adulthood.

This of course would be for the surviving ones as many of you well know more creatures born in the wild die at some point in their development than make it to maturity. Although spring is behind us this is often the time of year that the lives of wildlife and humans "collide," although not necessarily conflict.

The main reason for this is that with young animals - which by the way for this article  will pertain to birds and mammals only - are in abundance, This can completely change the "picture" so to speak in that humans are getting closer to animals than before by finding young ones that often lack the ability or the "know how" to strictly avoid humans.

This can happen anytime and virtually anyway, however there are some occurrences that are so common that they are worth specifying. The first of these is the finding of a deer fawn without the mother in sight.

You see for the first days of its life deer fawns are meant to stay fairly inactive for long periods huddled down in thick cover and well-camouflaged, hence the spots they posses when first born and for awhile after.

 Some people even say the fawns are "odorless" at this stage though personally I find this hard to believe for many reasons mainly because various mammalian predators that hunt mostly by scent take their toll on fawns at this stage. The  mother deer wanders off at this stage to feed and do what deer do, leaving the fawn concealed by itself.

There are two reasons for this. One is that it pays to avoid drawing attention to something so vulnerable and also it pays to avoid an area where predators may be roaming about at any given time thus saving yourself.

 After all, not nature, a full grown breeding female deer is more important than a fawn since she can simply go on to breed again if the fawn were to be lost. The main point is is that just because a fawn happens to be alone probably just means that the mother is elsewhere, which is normal as mother deer only stop by briefly a few times a day to nurse the fawn and that is it.

Usually fawns this young are so well camouflaged that you will walk right by them if they happen to be there and never see them. When people do it is usually sheer luck (stepping on their spot) or things such as mowing over their cover, or the pet dog unexpectedly sniffing them out, which is what happened in the photo above.

This is also a reminder for all dog owners to keep their animals under control at all times as this is also a common way humans and wildlife conflict, the reason for holding the fawn here was so the dogs (not mine) could taken away as they were roughing it up pretty good.

After a short while however fawns - although they will still remain concealed for long periods - will make every effort to avoid humans when they approach to closely completely eliminating the problem of people finding fawns they can actually "catch" and think are abandoned.

Keep in mind he basic information from this article that if you see a fawn anywhere it is most likely fine and its mother will be around to attend to it when the time is right (unless you have direct evidence the mother is dead in which case a call to a wildlife specialist could be warranted) If the fawn MUST be handled for any reason this can be done without fear of the mother rejecting it because of human scent but as was done in the photo above once ascertaining the fawn was fine they should always be put straight back in the wild to avoid undo stress

If it's not exactly where they were found, then as close as possible to the sight such as when their cover has been mowed over.

An animal that is usually discovered through similar or even identical circumstances are young cottontail rabbits. Once these animals leave the nest a few weeks after birth although they are not weaned entirely yet, they remain in cover typically in separate locations with the mother coming around to nurse them often no more than once a day.

The same scenario would follow upon discovering this animal and again even though alone they are not abandoned. The third occurrence that is most common is the discovery of young birds that appear to be out of their nest. Often this is normal as when young birds are growing and fledging they will often leave the nest on their own accord even if it means tumbling a decent ways to the ground.

If you see a young bird on the ground that can't fly away yet has most of its feathers and is alert with its eyes open chances are it is time for it to be out of the nest although depending on its age the parents may still be feeding. It as a fact of nature many young birds at this time do get taken by predators before fledgng out completely for obvious reasons.

Even with this being so it is best to let nature take its course as you probably know predators have a very limited affect on the bird population at large. If you happen to find a bird on the ground that your common sense says should not be there (i.e. featherless, eyes closed) the best thing to do is to put it back in the nest it came from and hope it will not fall out again until the time is right.

Your local vet's office or better yet animal shelter should know a local person that can be called upon to handle wildlife.

Keep in mind that if you do feel the wildlife in question requires "rescuing" you must get in touch with a specialist immediately as possessing any native bird and most mammals for any "uneccesary" length of time is unlawful.