Fawn Rescue needs help

Saving an endangered fawn, watching its rehabilitation and then seeing it set free is a fabulous feeling. Interested?

Wildlife Fawn Rescue, the organization founded by Marjorie Davis in 1989, saves about 100 fawns a year that have been caught in fences, hit by cars, left helpless by a traumatized doe or faced some sort of peril. She has saved roughly 2,000 fawns, and right now she’s looking for help – and lots of it.

Fawn Rescue is in search of a wildlife care coordinator. It also needs volunteer drivers to pick up fawns, and owners of rural properties who will feed rehabilitating fawns in large pens until they are released on-site, back into the wild.

Marj, as everyone calls her, is 94, and although she works everyday on some aspect of keeping Fawn Rescue going, she gave up the job of full-time care coordinator when she was in her 80s. The coordinator is the nonprofit’s only paid position (although Marj never accepted a penny) and is responsible for answering calls for help and either responding personally or sending a volunteer driver out to pick up the fawn. The fawns are then either taken to a veterinarian or to a one of the volunteers who will care for it until it’s four months old and loses its spots.

“This is not a Bambi job,” Marj said. “It’s always an emergency. When a call comes, we pick up our wallet and go. No excuses. If you have cornbread in the oven, you just turn it off and leave.”

Fawn Rescue is licensed by the Sonoma County Department of Fish and Game and is the only organization that provides long-term care for black-tailed fawns. “When you pick up your first baby fawn in the spring, you’re hooked,” Marj said, and hopes there are volunteers out there who’d love to have that experience.

It is important to know that once the fawns are rescued, they are never touched by humans again. “They have to remain wild. We can’t allow them to think we’re friends. We’re not.” They are fed first by bottle from behind a blind, and later given gathered native greenery, like oak leaves and toyon.

The coordinator and volunteers work from April to September, the season for fawns. The care coordinator must live on a rural property in Sonoma County. Drivers volunteer to be on call one day a week from dawn until dark. Fawn Rescue has released the last of the fawns rescued this past season. The current coordinator just resigned and they must find and train someone soon.

It is nature for fawns to be left by does, often in a leafy area or in tall grass, so the does can get food and water. If a fawn if alone, but appears to be fine, don’t touch it and don’t worry, the doe will be back. If it has dull eyes or is crying and appears distressed, that’s when to call Fawn Rescue for assistance.

“We also really, really need money,” Marj said. Donations are often around $25. “If we get $100 we are really excited. Sometimes we get $3 or $5 and we just know that that person really cared.”

Fawn Rescue is sometimes remembered in donors wills, and they occasionally receive grants. “The biggest donation we ever received was $25,000 and at first I thought it had to be some kind of a joke.”

Marj has written two books about her experiences saving fawns, “Leap to Freedom” and “Setting the Fawn Free.” Proceeds from book sales are donated to Fawn Rescue and can be purchased on its website.

“Knowing you have given a fawn a life that it would not have had is indescribable,” Marj said. “I’ve never had a boring day and I’ve never gotten burned out. I just can’t imagine not doing it. It’s part of my life.”

She also has an answer for those who may have the attitude that there are plenty enough deer, so why save them. “These animals are all here for a reason. Just enjoy them for their beauty and the freedom they display. Isn’t that enough?”

Marj continues to write stories about fawns, saved several at her property in Kenwood this past season and is determined to find the people and properties needed to keep Fawn Rescue going.

“The world is running at a faster pace than it did when I started. People don’t have as much time. But our work is a pleasure. It’s a privilege. I feel like somebody will be there for us.”

For more information or to donate: Wildlife Fawn Rescue, P.O. Box 1622, Sonoma CA 95476, fawnrescue.org or 931-4550.