Fawn Rescue Story

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		*Fawn Rescue!* by David Lawrence Reade For two straight days it poured. I had cabin fever. When the tempest finally subsided the next morning, I headed for the nearby magnificent Zoar Valley Gorge. With the first sun in 2 days warming my back, I carefully picked my way to the bottom. There, shafts of sun danced off the crashing waves of a river still pulsing with terrifying energy fueled by the runoff of the torrents of the last 48 hours. Determined to explore anyway, I picked my way along the shallows at the edge, careful to avoid the hungry currents further in. With my senses dulled by the incessant roar of the churning water echoing off the towering cliffs, I threaded my way upstream. After about an hour, I rounded a bend and there she was a soaking wet fawn lying, legs akimbo, among the rocks looking equal parts exhausted and frightened. She had apparently gotten caught in the floodwaters and been carried helplessly downstream until she was finally able to struggle out to the safety of this stony spit of land. Because a young fawn cannot yet run with the swiftness and assurance that would be its heritage, its only defense is to lie perfectly still. For this reason, it is usually better to leave a lying fawn alone, for the mother is ordinarily hiding nearby. This time however, with this narrow tongue of land completely isolated by raging water and cliffs, and her mother somewhere far upstream, it was clear that she would die without my help. This meant scaling cliffs with this precious two-week-old cargo in my arms. At first the fawn was terrified, but soon she began to relax. By the time I reached the top, she was licking the sweat off my neck (for the salt it contained) and had stopped struggling. A friend took the fawn for me to a wildlife rehabilitator and I am happy to report that several months later she is now back where she belongs, leaping through forest and field! Copyright David Lawrence Reade / DLR Imagery - All Rights Reserved.