Officer’s sweet photo with fawn rescued from Calif. wildfire leaps across internet

SAN FRANCISCO — A highway patrol officer who became an internet sensation after he helped rescue a month-old fawn from a Northern California wildfire said Monday he didn’t expect the photos to go viral.

On Saturday morning, California Highway Patrol Sgt. David Fawson, 38, of San Francisco helped Cal Fire officers rescue a fawn from fast-growing wildfire in Redding, about 230 miles north of San Francisco.

“We were driving through an active fire, when Cal Fire said, ‘Can you take a deer out here for us?’ ” he said. “I held it in my lap as we drove out.”

He and his partner took the fawn to a safer area miles away, but the baby deer didn’t run away like Fawson thought it would.

The popularity of the photos online took him by surprise. Pictures of the fawn sitting in his lap in a patrol car and licking his neck have been shared more than 16,000 times on Facebook.

Representatives from Haven Wild Care’s fawn rescue program retrieved her. They named her Carra, after the fire she escaped.

Zoo doubly excited by birth of twin red pandas

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Officials at an upstate New York zoo have announced the birth of twin red pandas, an endangered species found in Asia.

The male cubs were born at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, in Syracuse, on June 21. Zookeepers have named them Loofah and Doofah after characters in “The Land Before Time” animated film series.

The cubs were born to the zoo’s breeding pair of red pandas, mother Tabei and father Ketu. Zoo officials say keepers are bottle-feeding the cubs.

California Highway Patrol via Associated Press California Highway Patrol Sgt. David Fawson holds a fawn that was located without a mother inside the Carr Fire line near Redding, Calif. Fawson evacuated the deer to safety for care with a wildlife rescue.

Associated Press In a photo provided by the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, endangered twin red pandas huddle together Tuesday in Syracuse, N.Y.