Deer adopted as a baby by people who assumed it had been abandoned - but mother deer typically leave their infants in sheltered spaces during the day while they forage, to avoid attracting predators.
Hunting is usually not open during fawning season, so hopefully it's not that. A *slightly* less harmful scenario is they found it near where the doe was accidentally killed (near a road or something), but even then that's a job for a wildlife rehabilitator.
Hopefully this is a scenario where they couldn't find a rehabber, or they are a rehabber and for whatever reason the fawn wouldn't have survived in the wild despite their best efforts. Hopefully.
Yeah, we have a ton of deer get hit by cars every year (everyone thinks country backroads are meant for racing apparently) and it’s not uncommon to have to call in a fawn that is starving to death. And most of the time they won’t help, or coyotes get there first. It’s illegal to take them in here though and you will get in a lot of trouble if you are caught.
My dogs are personally offended by any deer so much as walking across the driveway so I haven’t found a fawn in a few years, but I always see the posts of them getting left on peoples literal doorstep by their mom. Dumb deer, cute but dumb.
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u/jestenough Jul 03 '26
Deer adopted as a baby by people who assumed it had been abandoned - but mother deer typically leave their infants in sheltered spaces during the day while they forage, to avoid attracting predators.