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Community Corner

Teens Carrying Live Fawn: And Then What?

Police calls in April about a dead deer on Marin Avenue, and later that same day, about teens carrying a fawn in the same area caught my attention in a heart-tugging way. I asked around and here's what I learned.

Did anyone else catch the brief a while back of “three teenagers carrying a live deer fawn at San Pablo and Marin avenues,” and, well, wonder?

It was on the heels of a same-day report of a dead deer on Marin Avenue. Which made me, sinking heart, wonder even more.

A motherless fawn in our midst?

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These police calls occurred on April 27; the dead deer at 7:56 a.m. and the fawn at 3:19 p.m., according to the Albany Police bulletin. 

My curiosity, my concern lingered, as the hoopla and controversy of Occupy the Farm took the media stage. I knew the Gill Tract wasn't terra incognito for deer; I've glimpsed them there through the years, always surprised, usually in the trees near the creek around dusk. Years ago, I swear I spotted a three-legged fellow. 

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I couldn’t let the police reports drop. Several calls, emails and pressing later, here’s what I learned. 

An "occupy bystander" contacted the nonprofit WildCare on the afternoon of April 27 to report teenagers carrying a fawn around the Gill Tract, said Winnie Kelly, an Albany resident who happens to work for the Marin wild animal rehabilitation organization.

The WildCare staff who took the call contacted Kelly because she lived in the area and specializes in deer, she said. She called the and went to the tract to check it out, as a citizen, not in any official capacity from WildCare, Kelly said, emphasizing that the organization doesn’t make field visits.

When she arrived, the police had already intervened, and the fawn appeared OK.  

"The folks from the Occupy movement had gotten the fawn away from the teenagers, and had put it somewhere quiet until they could figure out what to do," Kelly said. 

Police asked her to take a look. 

“If I'm remembering right, the fawn was a female about a week old, and she was warm and had a half-full tummy (appropriate for that time of day),” Kelly wrote in an email. 

“I didn't see any signs of shock or capture myopathy. I told Marcie (Albany Police officer Marcie Burrell) that we should (a) find her someplace safe near where she was originally found, and (b) educate everybody about deer, so that they'd leave them the heck alone.” 

The fawn was placed in thickets on the south side of the tract, away from the farming activities, and occupiers educated about how to protect it, Kelly said. At the time, she noticed two other deer, one young, in the area.    

A couple of weeks ago, driving east on Buchanan at twilight, I spotted a tween-looking fawn mid Gill Tract, white marks fading to mottled dark fur, nibbling probably sprouting vegetables. 

The same critter?

And the reported dead deer?

Not the mom, said Kate O'Conner, manager of Berkeley Animal Services, which contracts with Albany. “Just checked our records and we did pick up a dead deer on the 1600 block of Marin 4/27/12, does not seem to have had any bearing on the fawn,” she wrote.

A dad?

According to Kelly, about four deer live on the Gill Tract depending on the season. Their lifestyle is perilous, she said. 

“The deer wander to and from the tract to Albany Hill as needed for food, shelter, or in the mating season. It's a bad spot to be a deer, of course, with San Pablo and Buchanan right there, but they don't have anyplace left to go. . . so they make their living as best they can.”

She adds: “You would make me the happiest little deer person in the state if you could remind the folks in Albany and surrounding communities that wild animals are individuals, with their own agendas. Leave them alone unless they're obviously in trouble; check with someone who knows before you decide to act.

"These guys have the right to their space on the planet, just like the rest of us. As the 'lead mammal' on Earth, we need to use our much-vaunted brains to help them survive our technology (and our hubris).

"Ignorance could easily have killed that doe's week-old fawn. One phone call by an intelligent onlooker made all the difference to that baby!”

If there's something in this article you think , or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email at albany@patch.com.

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