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Deer Rescue: The day I drove around with a baby deer in my car

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Many mornings after I drop my son off at school, I walk around town with a couple friends and we attempt to shed the pounds from our dinner the night before. The walks are usually peaceful and uneventful with the exception of a couple days ago. The roads around the school are wooded and lined with gorgeous historic homes with lush manicured lawns, to die for homes ….really. As we were walking an itty bitty baby deer literally stumbled out into traffic and barely made it across the road. We were about 50 feet away and just stopped and couldn’t believe our eyes. His back leg appeared to be hurt and he just stopped on the side of the road not knowing where to go.

Deer Rescue : the day i rode around with a deer in my car

Not knowing what to do, we called our local police department and they sent an officer to assess the baby deer. He was clearly in distress. At this point, we thought he had been hit by a car.

Deer Rescue : the day i rode around with a deer in my car

After about an hour, with no mom in site, the officer wrapped the baby in a blanket and I offered to take it to our local animal hospital. I drove home grabbed a dog crate and off we went.

Deer Rescue : the day i rode around with a deer in my car

Seriously, bambi was in my car.

Many of you may say we should have left the deer alone but leaving him hurt on the side of the road with no mom deer in site, was not an option. Call me crazy! I don’t care ;).

After driving for 15 minutes or so, we learned from our local animal hospital that they couldn’t accept the deer, that Wildlife rescue needed to intervene. At this point I was like, “what the what!” am I going to do with this little guy? I mean, I can’t keep him!

We headed back to our local police station were we explained that the animal hospital wouldn’t take him and we didn’t know where else to bring it. So we placed the dog crate in the police station with the officers and their cruisers ;).

Deer Rescue : the day i rode around with a deer in my car

Wildlife rescue ended up getting involved and ultimately made the decision to place him back further in the woods near where he was found on the road. The Wildlife officer explained that even though he was weak and his leg appeared hurt, we needed to give the mom a chance to nurse him back to health. So the police officer placed him back in the woods and monitored throughout the day.

Deer Rescue : the day i rode around with a deer in my car

Can I just tell you, this is one crazy morning. What did I learn? I learned that next time, it probably would have been best to leave the deer and check back every so often to see if the mom deer returned. Although, leaving on the roadside was not an option. I mean, tooling around town with Bambi isn’t the wisest decision. With our limited Wildlife knowledge, we did the best we could given the circumstances. The baby deer will be taken by Wildlife if the mom doesn’t return and he continues to stagger around. Apparently, a local zoo would be willing to adopt him ;).

UPDATE: since writing this post, a group of deer were spotted by the police officer and the baby is gone from the wooded area it was returned to. We believe the momma deer came back and the baby is fine ;). Wildlife also explained that a human scent on a deer will not deter the mother deer from taking their baby back. Phew!

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6 Comments

  1. Karla Griffith says:

    What an awesome experience! I would have picked “bambi” up as well. So sweet and innocent. I’m sure it’s mommy was happy to find her baby.

  2. I agree, l wouldn’t have been able to leave the deer either..You did a good thing..The baby could have easily been run over had you left him on the side of the road.

  3. So funny. I was just reading something about deer and how the mother’s often leave the babies all day and come back and get them in the evening (something about keeping them safer from predators that way – ugh, can’t remember exactly now). But it was lucky you did intervene so the deer got placed further back in the woods. I am sure the Mama didn’t mean for her baby to get hit by traffic!

  4. Denise :) says:

    That is such a sweet story !!! And I would have done the same thing !!! I’ve had many a puppy in the front seat of my car looking for its mommy so we are kindred spirits ;). I too was shocked to find that human scent on little Bambi was ok … Thank God !!! People like you make the world a better place … You rock !!!!

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