The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes Read Online Free PDF Page A

recently begun in western Virginia, we'd already received an initial supply of goat's milk in preparation for the orphaned white-tailed deer fawns we knew would be coming our way.
    From prior experience, we knew that either fresh goat's milk or powdered lamb-milk replacer worked best for raising orphan deer fawns; cow's milk is not so good. The trick is not to overload the digestive system too fast, especially in a dehydrated animal. The fawn's first bottle would be 25 percent goat's milk and 75 percent water, the second one 50-50, and the third 75 percent goat's milk and 25 percent water. That way, we'd allow the animal's intestinal tract time to adjust before starting on pure goat's milk. Our new fawn was hungry and took to the bottle readily. The holes in his ears healed in about two weeks, and I discontinued the antibiotics.
    The WCV routinely receives twenty to thirty white-tailed deer fawns every year. Some of these fawns are legitimately orphaned, found standing next to their dead mothers alongside a roadway after a fatal encounter with a car that couldn't stop in time. But many “orphaned” fawns aren't orphaned at all. Mother deer don't spend all day with their babies. On the contrary, they 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 rhinestone earrings 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