The Hippo with Toothache Read Online Free PDF

allow the fawns to nurse only a few times a day. Most of the time, deer moms are out shopping for groceries (as it were) while they leave their babies hidden in a nest of tall grass somewhere. A fawn has the instinct to lie very still, not moving until it hears its mother coming back for it.
    Unfortunately, most people who happen upon such a fawn in a field or woods think the baby has been abandoned. It’s all too easy for them to pick up the animal and carry it away, thinking they are doing the right thing for the fawn. But taking a perfectly healthy animal out of the wild is obviously not in its best interest.
    Whenever a new orphan arrived, I’d quiz its would-be rescuers, trying to ascertain whether they’d actually seen a dead mom. If not, I’d encourage them to put the fawn back where they found it.
    Some people worry that “the scent of man” carried by such a fawn will deter the mother from taking her baby back. But this is rarely the case. Of course, a replaced baby does need to be monitored to make sure its mother returns to care for it. Most of the time, putting these babies back where they came from works. Was our new fawn with the rhinestoneearrings a true orphan or not? From the vague story told by his female captors, I feared we’d never know for sure.
    Happily, he already had a companion. We’d recently received our first orphan deer fawn of the year—good timing for Earring Boy, as my wildlife rehabilitation staff had taken to calling him. We didn’t routinely give names to the wild animals in our care at the WCV. We wanted to stress that these animals were not pets, that our goal was to make them better and then return them to the wild. More important, deer fawns are best raised in groups and with minimal contact with people, so that they retain their wild instincts. Nevertheless the name stuck.
    When the game wardens called to check on Earring Boy, I told them he was doing fine. Good, they replied, because we need you to keep him there until the court date. They were charging the women in the van with illegal possession of wildlife: you can’t go driving around with a live deer in the back of your car. Because of the earrings, the women would also be charged with cruelty to a wild animal. I would have to go to court as a potential witness when the case was heard before the judge.
    In an odd sort of way, I looked forward to the court date. It wasn’t just that I didn’t think Earring Boy was a true orphan. I believed it was important to address the all-too-common problem of people taking wild animals out of the wild. Without seeking expert advice, people will often keep a wild animal for a few days, thinking it will make a good pet, until it becomes too much trouble. By that point, it’s dehydrated or ill or injured. Then they simply dump it somewhere, often to die. If the animal is lucky, it ends up at awildlife center like ours. Even so, they need to know when to intervene and when to leave nature alone. I wanted to make sure the judge hearing the case was aware of these points.
    When the day came, I made certain to arrive at the courthouse on time. The testimony proved quite entertaining. “I thought it would be pretty,” the woman explained to the court, referring to the earrings. “You can get a little kid’s ears pierced. What’s the difference between a person’s ears and a baby deer’s?” When a reporter from the James Madison University student newspaper took a picture of one of the defendants, she responded with an obscene gesture—a photo the newspaper was only too happy to publish on its front page.
    Ultimately, the cruelty charge was dropped when the women agreed to the illegal-possession-of-wildlife charge. They were fined the exact amount of money I calculated it cost us to house and treat Earring Boy until his release, which was then paid to the WCV in reimbursement. I’d been looking forward to