This Spring, Show You Care And Leave It There

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What brightens spring for most of us—newborn wild animals—causes heartburn for many wildlife biologists. They know the price some of these tiny creatures pay when well-intentioned people remove them from the wild.

“People with the best of intentions pick up an ‘orphaned’ fawn, bobcat, or moose calf and bring it in for us to do something with it,” said Mike Korn, FWP Helena area resource program manager. “The sad thing is that the mother is usually within eyeshot as the family drives away with what they presume is an orphan.”

Korn said many people get so caught up in “helping” newborn wildlife, they don’t stop to think about the animal behaviors involved in a situation and how to read it.

For example, Korn said deer, elk and moose often leave their young to go off and feed. The young know to stay put and lay low. Because a fawn or calf is lying in the weeds or grass by itself does not mean it is orphaned.   The same is true of young birds just learning to fly. The adult birds are most often nearby. Patience will show, in almost all cases, if the infant is alone the parent will rejoin it in a few hours or by nightfall.  

Gayle Joslin, an FWP biologist in Helena, tells this story to illustrate animal behavior. Joslin’s family found a newborn mule deer fawn with the umbilical cord still attached lying in the middle of the road on their way home one spring night.   They had just come around a corner on a dirt road when Joslin’s daughter slammed on the brakes. A tiny fawn was in the headlights.   

The doe had taken off and the fawn, relying on instinct, dropped into a curled, motionless position in the center of the road. They carefully picked the newborn up and moved it to the top of the bank alongside the road and drove on. Joslin surmised that the mother and baby were trying to cross the road when their car came around the corner and startled them. Joslin said the doe, watching from the forest edge, reunited with the infant later that evening.

Joslin said humans put an infant animal at risk if they remove it without knowing conclusively that it is orphaned, for example, when the dead mother is observable nearby.

“How tragic it is that people, who love animals and think they are helping, actually separate these tiny creatures from their natural mothers and deny them the life in the wild they were born to enjoy,” Joslin said.

Animals that are clearly orphaned should be reported to the nearest FWP regional or area office.

The lure of having an unusual pet or the dream of taming a wild creature is another reason newborn animals are sometimes taken from the wild. It is illegal to possess or remove from the wild any game animal, game bird, song bird, furbearer or bird of prey, and fines may be levied for such violations.

State law also prohibits people from having wild animals that may have rabies such as fox, raccoons, skunks and bats.

Korn said the best policy for people to remember regarding infant wildlife is, “if you care, leave them there.”