9/19/2009 3:17:00 PM Fawning over wildlife can be illegal
Courtesy photos
Although baby wildlife is unquestionably cute it is illegal to capture or keep any found in the wild. Arizona Game & Fish recommends you leave them where you find them. More often than not their mothers will return.
Montezuma Well Maintenance worker Scott Frisch and park intern Sarahanne Blake enjoyed a few hours fawning over a baby whitetail buck that was left on their doorstep in July by someone who said they found it in their neighbor's backyard.
CAMP VERDE - It has been said that anyone can serve as an example -- some as good ones and others as bad ones. This is the story of a bad one.
Recently, Montezuma Well maintenance worker Scott Frisch was approached by a woman who asked him if he would come out to the parking lot. She had something to give him.
Wary but cooperative, Frisch followed her to her car. When she opened the door, Frisch was presented with a newborn fawn.
Asked where it came from the woman told Frisch she had rescued it from her neighbors, who she described as "a couple of crackheads." She also told Frisch she had been taking care of it for a couple of days.
Stunned more than anything, he didn't ask the woman any more questions.
Frisch got a dog crate, some towels for bedding, and took the week-old whitetail buck to park headquarters. Headquarters called Arizona Game & Fish officer Tom Bagley, but not before the park staff had an opportunity to fawn over the baby beast for a couple of hours.
"We went over to Healthy Thymes and got some goat milk. And we got a baby bottle from Golden Bone. It was so fun and it was so friendly," says Kathie Davis, National Parks superintendent.
Bagley, who ended up taking the critter to a zoo in Prescott, believes whoever found it probably thought it was abandoned and took it home.
Which, Bagley says, is a bad example of what to do if you find young animals alone in the woods.
"Game & Fish encourages people in the spring and summer when fawns are being born to leave them in place if found," he says.
More often than not the mother is in the vicinity and has stowed the fawn for safety, Bagley says.
The only time it is acceptable to pick up a fawn in the wild is if you are certain it belongs to a doe that has been killed on the highway, for instance.
"Left in the field, they will generally live a full and healthy life," Bagley says.
However, once handled by humans they cannot be returned and must be sent to the Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center in Phoenix, where they are eventually farmed out to a zoo.
"I get a couple of calls a year," Bagley says. "Some folks don't know it's illegal. We had one guy in Cottonwood with an elk calf he picked up in the Flagstaff area and brought home.
"He'd had it a couple of weeks when his neighbors called. It was a male -- and to have had a full grown bull elk in his back yard -- you have to wonder what he was thinking."
Bagley noted the man received a citation in spite of the man's plea that he was not aware it was illegal to capture wildlife.
