Document text
CLOUDY Temp: 76 °F Wind: NW at 6 mph Thursday, June 27, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Cyberchef E The People Golf Job Network Headbone Zone Wellness Connection Movie Times Newspaper in Education Oregon CarZone Outdoor Journal Personals Prime Times Real Estate Tempo A & E TV Times W3 Magazine CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Destinations Automotive Communities Employment Entertainment Publications Real Estate Recreation Shopping Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Jobs @ Mail Tribune Email Story to a Friend June 24, 2002 Wildlife Images clinic supervisor Chris Rodgers tends to a dangerously dehydrated fawn plucked from her forest home near Prospect by a couple who thought they were doing the right thing. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Killing with kindness A fawn taken out of the forest near Prospect fights for her life By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune With gangly legs and soft white spots, this blacktail doe fawn should be spending a sunny Friday afternoon slumbering in the lush brush near Prospect, where she was born in the wild barely two weeks ago. Instead, she sat in a Merlin animal rehabilitation center as a testimony to how kindhearted people can love wildlife to death. A Prospect couple plucked this fawn out of her pasture last week, thinking she was orphaned. They fed her cow’s milk, unwittingly damaging the tiny deer’s digestive system, before shipping her Friday to Wildlife Images in Merlin. "Her tummy’s bloated and the diarrhea’s just falling out of her," sighed Chris Rodgers, Wildlife Images’ clinic supervisor, minutes after the fawn’s arrival there. "I don’t expect this fawn to be around in the morning." She is No. 10 this year in Wildlife Images’ annual assemblage of sad little fawns who are victims of the endless battle of persuading Oregonians to leave baby critters alone. Each summer, people stumble upon young fawns and other infant wildlife and mistakenly believe the animals are orphaned and in need of help. Normally, the fawns are simply hiding in brush while their mother is off feeding. When people pick up the fawns, it generates stress for both the fawn and the doe, often decreasing the fawn’s rate of survival. It is illegal to take a fawn, and anyone who picks one up is encouraged to put it back immediately. In this case, the fawn was running through a field but somehow became separated from her mother. Her intended benefactors believed she was orphaned and spent two days feeding and tending to her. The couple turned her over to Wildlife Images, which is the Rogue Valley’s depository for ill-fated fawns. "I fully understand people’s compassion," said Simon Wray, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Central Point. "I’m glad they have compassion for animals. It’s just that, in this circumstance, it’s misplaced." Back at Wildlife Images, Rodgers could do nothing Friday afternoon for the Prospect doe. Badly dehydrated, she wouldn’t drink a bottle of special electrolyte fluids offered by Rodgers. The doe blinked and fidgeted inside a kennel, which filled with the stench of a sick animal. "We’ll make her as comfortable as possible," said Rodgers, an 11-year veteran of Wildlife Images’ summer fawns. That’s all we can do." When Rodgers’ shift ended Friday evening, she looked at the fawn one last time with empathy. "I don’t blame the people at all," Rodgers said. "They did what they thought was the right thing. But from the kindness of their hearts, they’re doing harm." Wray said that picking up and moving fawns could cause more harm this year than most other years because of two diseases now spreading through Western Oregon’s blacktail deer. Deer hair-loss syndrome and adenovirus are spread easily from deer to deer through contact or contamination of food sources. The viruses are known to be in isolated pockets, but a human who swoops up an infected fawn and takes it elsewhere could spread infection to otherwise healthy herds. "People moving animals around could make the disease problem worse than it is," Wray said. At Wildlife Images, Ann Southcombe took over for Rodgers in the clinic Friday evening and assumed the duty of chronicling the demise of the sick fawn. Southcombe took one last stab at reversing the fawn’s rapid and deadly dehydration. "I force-fed her 4 ounces of electrolytes," Southcombe said. "That’s all I could do." The fawns that survive their relocation from the woods to Wildlife Images are kept in a separate pen away from the other animals. Staff and volunteers care for them with minimal contact, in hopes that they can all be released later this year with enough of their original instincts to survive. Some years, the center ends up with more than two dozen fawns. So far, the center has nine in the pen — only three were legitimate orphans. "We’ve been telling people for years to leave these fawns alone," Wildlife Images Director David Siddon said. "It doesn’t seem like people are getting any better or worse about picking them up. We just have too many people in the woods collecting things." On Saturday morning, Southcombe entered the clinic to collect the fawn’s carcass. "I couldn’t believe it," Southcombe said. "She’s alive." The fawn sucked down two 8-ounce bottles of fortified liquid. The dehydration was reversed. Hope was restored. "That means she’s on her way toward recovery," Southcombe said. "I would have never guessed it. "I sure hope she makes it." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy web master feedback A D V E R T I S E R S