The saying “mother knows best” doesn’t just pertain to humans — it can also be applied to animals. Mama animals know the best ways to protect their babies from predators, but sometimes humans can get in the way of their instincts. This was the case with a tiny fawn who was accidentally kidnapped from the cozy nook his mom placed him in.
The other day, a family in San Rafael, California, noticed something moving under their parked car. As they bent down, they came eye to eye with someone who wasn’t there before.
“[They] were startled to find a tiny, spotted black-tailed deer fawn blinking up at them from underneath their car,” WildCare, a California-based wildlife hospital, wrote in a Facebook post. “Assuming the fawn must be orphaned to be in such an odd location, they found a box and quickly brought him to WildCare.”
WildCare has rescued and rehabilitated many orphaned deer in the past, so they knew just what to look for. They gave the baby a checkup and quickly realized that he hadn’t really been abandoned.
“[An] examination in the wildlife hospital found this speckled baby to have a full belly, moist mouth and eyes, and a normal temperature,” WildCare wrote. “He wasn’t actually orphaned!”
You can see their post about him here:
The family may have never encountered a baby deer under their car before, but the wildlife education and rehabilitation center wasn’t surprised by their finding. They knew that the baby was there because of his mother’s instincts.
“Mother deer know that the best way to protect their fawns from predators is to place them in a safe spot and leave them alone for hours,” WildCare wrote. “Clearly, this mother deer thought a bulky automobile provided excellent cover for her baby, and, of course, it never occurred to her that the car would move!”
As soon as they realized what had happened, the team at WildCare immediately jumped into action. They planned on bringing him back to the area where he was initially found and hoped that, after leaving him alone for a little bit, his mom would trace his scent.
Luckily, they didn’t need to wait at all. When WildCare’s director of animal care, Melanie Piazza, drove the fawn out to his finding spot, she spotted his mom in the brush. Typically, she would carry the fawn to a safe place using a kennel and then wait for his mom to approach him, but, in this unique situation, she made a bold decision.
“The bowl-shaped terrain was too steep to safely carry the delicate baby down in a kennel, so when Melanie spotted mom in the distance, she made the quick decision to go outside the usual protocols, take her one chance, and literally hand-deliver the tiny fawn back into the loving care of his mother,” WildCare wrote on Facebook.
You can watch the reunion here:
Approaching the deer while carrying her baby came with risks, from Mom potentially running to the baby potentially being rejected, but Piazza followed her own instincts when reuniting them. With the mama deer watching cautiously, Piazza got as close as possible to her and placed the baby down.
The baby happily wobbled his way over to his mom as she came to the realization that, finally, her baby was back in her sight. The mother deer glanced over at Piazza almost as if to thank her before prancing away with her baby following close behind her.
On top of rescuing, rehabilitating and reuniting orphaned wildlife in their community, WildCare is dedicated to educating the public on what to do in these situations. They hope to prevent more accidental kidnappings in the future — but, if any more cases like this do come into their rescue, the team will know just what to do.