Help for ‘Bambi’ just a phone call away, says animal rescue

In regards to your recent column about helping fawns and deer, I understand your intent was to prevent over-rescue of fawns and dependence of adult deer on humans, but I’m afraid you also shared some erroneous information. There actually is help available for them.

Native Animal Rescue is the nonprofit wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organization that serves Santa Cruz County. This season, the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley’s fawn/deer team members, very experienced and committed people, have joined Native Animal’s fawn/deer team so we can continue to serve the fawns/deer and community members in five counties — Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Alameda.

I have been Native Animal Rescue’s fawn/deer team leader for the past five years. We have team members who can talk with concerned community members about fawns and adult deer they may think are in distress. We send team members out into the field to assess the situation and we also evaluate the situation with photos and videos people send us via email and texts.

We work closely with California Department of Fish and Wildlife and with local animal services agencies to respond to all sorts of fawn and deer related calls. In fact, these agencies usually call us to handle situations because our volunteers are often better equipped to respond to calls.

We handle scores of calls each year and our two fawn rehabbers rehabilitate and release about a dozen fawns every year. We treat far many more who don’t make it because they’re too severely injured or ill to survive. In those cases, people often “under-rescue” and it’s sad indeed when we might have helped fawns survive. We’ve learned that underrescue can be just as serious a problem as over-rescue.

We work with a team of incredible veterinarians who do what they can to treat fawns, and if possible and with the permission of Fish and Wildlife, adult deer. We also work with an amazing wildlife rescue organization called Wildlife Emergency Services, whose team members go into the field to do some truly daunting rescues.

So there is indeed help in our region for both fawns and adult deer. It would be so great if you could tell your readers about us. We’d much rather have people call us for advice than to just let nature take its course because most of the time humans are responsible for causing the fawn’s or deer’s distress.

We’ve set up a special hotline — 408-728-6334 — for Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco County residents. We’re still getting many calls each week as older fawns are getting injured and becoming orphaned and newer fawns born in July need all kinds of assistance. — Kathy St. John, Native Animal Rescue

I’m delighted to spread the word, and to know that such caring, well-trained people are available to help fawns and deer. In Contra Costa County, folks can call the Lindsay Wildlife Experience in Walnut Creek, 925935-1978 about fawns, and Animal Services, 925-6088400, about adult deer.