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Deer Rescue

jdotson

jdotson

Well-known member
The wife and I had a very interesting experience while airboating on the non developed side of Lake June in Lake Placid this afternoon. As we were slowly cruising along the grass and tree line my wife pointed out a doe in the water. Immediately she tapped me on the shoulder again and pointed to what looked like a fox running out of the water with a big fish of some kind. I turned the boat around to get a closer look and we realized it was a rather large bobcat with a spotted fawn in it's mouth. The cat had the fawn by the throat which appeared lifeless as we pulled up on it. The cat ran to the shoreline and dropped the fawn on the ground as it ran off through the woods. We thought the fawn was dead as it lay motionless but saw that it was breathing sporadically. We pulled away and shut down a ways off to see if the doe would come back and decided to call FWC to see what we could do if it needed to be saved. Forty five minutes later the fawn had still not moved, no sign of the doe and numerous failed attempts to contact two wildlife rehab centers found us wondering what to do. A final call to FWC was made and permission was given for us to take the fawn to Wrede's Wildlife Rehab in Lake Placid. We loaded up the deer, wrapped it in towels and headed back to the boat ramp. As we were driving through Lake Placid on our way to Wrede's (which we still could not make contact) the other rehab resource called us back from a message we left previously. The story had a happy ending as the fawn started regaining strength while in the truck and it is now on it's way to Arnold's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Okeechobee where a foster mother is waiting. This was by far the best airboat trip I have taken in a while. You can see some bleeding from the neck injuries in the pictures.

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i always knew ya had a heart jd very cool good work guys if any body calls ya bunny hugger ill kick there arse
 
Believe me I wish we could've (this was posted by me kdotson I don't know how I ended up signed on as jdotson)
 
I might have interrupted the circle of life but it felt like the right thing to do. I wasn't about to load up any kind of deer without proper authorization. Going to jail or losing my boat would have made a bad day regardless of the good intention. I pulled out my fish/hunt license and called the FWC wildlife abuse hotline to get the proper permission before I did anything.
 
Great job ! Ya did it by the book and it had a happy ending for all concerned, except maybe the cat has a hungry belly for a day :)

Scotty
 
Great job. You did everything you could do. That little fellow will probably be fine if it survives the wounds. Doing wildlife work for the last 30 + years the hardest thing I was involved with was full grown deer wounded, their survival rate was low due to the stress factor, but nearly all the juvenile deer did fine. Worse part was what we called the soft release, where we had pens out in the woods and fed them in there for a week or so and then opened the gates and checked on them for a while and they would eventally (sp ) never return to their bedding in the pen. Thats how we released most all the stuff we rehabbed. Some of the neatest animals were the young fox and bobcats, it was all I could do to keep from keeping some. But there is alot of drawbacks to all of them once they are grown.Kudos to you for your time and efforts. Heres a pic of one of the young fox that was released after it got old enough. Cajun

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just think, now there's probably a litter of bobcat kittens starving to death!!! lol, just kidding. i hate those situations though. interrupting nature's cycle but sometimes our kind hearts get the best of us.
 
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