You are out hiking, enjoying the beautiful Colorado sunshine, when you see a fawn lying in the grass. What should you do?

Perhaps you are at home and notice a fawn curled up in your flowerbed. Should you pick it up?

The answer to both questions is the same: Leave fawns alone.

Don’t be the reason a fawn is needlessly orphaned, or worse, euthanized. Sadly, those are often the consequences of people picking up fawns.

Why do I say people are orphaning fawns? Because most of the fawns brought to Colorado Parks and Wildlife were never abandoned by mom. Unfortunately people don’t want to believe it when we tell them does often leave their fawns for hours, even days, lying in the grass while they go feed. So they pick them up.

And why are some fawns euthanized?

Because there number of large mammal rehabilitation facilities where we can take fawns is dwindling. They are volunteer organizations with limited budgets and fewer people want the responsibility of providing care, 24-7, for wild animals.

And the few rehabbers still accepting deer are only certified for a certain number of fawns. They quickly reach capacity, so they are picky about what kind of fawns they are willing to accept. They only want to care for fawns truly orphaned. Sometimes a doe is killed by a car. (In Colorado Springs, an average of one deer a day is recovered by the city roadkill team.) A fawn also can be orphaned if its doe is killed by a predator, such as a mountain lion. (We always warn people who feed deer that if they are attracting deer, they are attracting mountain lions.)

It seems many people just don’t want to believe that a deer would leave a tiny, newborn fawn in the grass for hours all by itself. To some, it sounds insensitive or even cruel. After all, a human mother would never dream of leaving her baby unattended for hours or a day or two.

Remember, deer have been surviving for millennium this way. It is important to understand that deer just have a different way of protecting their offspring.

After a 200-day gestational period, a pregnant doe will move to a fawning area to give birth. In the wild, this will be in a secluded meadow where the doe feels safe. In urban areas, does often give birth in locations that will often make us scratch our heads. It might seem silly to us, but a backyard is actually a safe place for doe to give birth in and hide her fawns.

Fawns will weigh 5-10 pounds at birth, and will stand when they are within 12 hours old. However, they will be wobbly and not able to move fast. This makes fawns easy targets to predators such as black bears, mountain lions, coyotes and bobcats.

You might be wondering, how do deer protect their vulnerable offspring from all those predators? The answer is quite ingenious. A doe will leave her fawn in hiding spots, while she goes off to forage. She might leave her fawns in tall grass, behind bushes, or even underneath your deck. Once I even had a doe leave her fawns underneath a vehicle! (It’s a good idea to check underneath your vehicles before you drive off.)

Fawns are born reddish brown in color with white spots. This helps them hide from predators, in other words it’s nature’s way of providing camouflage. These spots will fade after the first month of life, and by that time they will be much more mobile. Fawns will also have little to no scent at birth and will lay silent for hours.

The mother will be very careful when she returns to her young, and will only do so if she feels safe. She will often only come around when there are no people around, which is why it is important to not crowd around a fawn and enjoy it from a distance.

Resist the temptation to pick up these tiny creatures. If you do, you are reducing its chances of survival immensely. When you touch a deer, you impart your human scent on the fawn. It can no longer hide in plain sight from predators because they can smell it. And its mother might reject it.

It is best for the baby deer to let mom take care of it and save human involvement for only in cases when the mother has died.

The worst thing you can do is take it into your home and try to raise it yourself. First, that is illegal. Yes, fawns are cute and it is appealing to care for something so tiny. Many people think they are doing something good. However, if you take in a fawn you are giving it a death sentence. A fawn needs a specialized diet that you cannot provide. Sadly, I have received too many calls about severely sick fawns because someone took one in and was feeding it human food.

Further, a deer raised by humans creates a dangerous situation. That little big-eyed, spotted fawn will grow up. If it is a young buck, it will grow antlers that could possibly injure someone when it has no fear of people. A doe will stomp someone if it gets angry or scared.

So, if you care about wild animals, leave baby wildlife alone.

If you feel a fawn has been abandoned, please call our office 719-227-5200 and we will assess the situation and work with a certified wildlife rehabilitation center to get aid for the wildlife, if possible. Please do not handle them yourself.

As always, if you’ve got a question, problem or column idea, call me at 719-227-5287. I might even answer your question in a future installment of “Wildlife Matters.”