If you come across a fawn, or other wildlife, either on your property or in the middle of a field, the chances are very good the mother will be back for it.
Conservation Officer Ted Glass with the Ministry of Corrections, Policing, and Public Safety, said the mother has put it there for safe-keeping.
"This is the time of year that mother deer look for the absolute safest place to let their baby deer sit and wait until mama deer comes back," he explained. "It may be in the forest. It may be in a farmer's field, but the safest place sometimes is in someone's backyard. Town sites are very safe places because they don't have the majority of predators out there, and mama deer is no fool. She'll do her very best to put the very safest place for her fawn to stay."
Glass said the worst thing to do is to bring the baby animal into your home.
"Just leave it alone. Leave nature to take care of nature."
"If you were to take it into your house, the mom will come back. She'll check on the fawn, not find the fawn, and the deer will consider that something's happened to that fawn, and the deer may leave. So by all means, if you can just leave it alone, do your very best to take care of your pets and let nature do its very best to take care of the wildlife."
So, what should you do if you want to avoid baby animals being left in your yard?
"Take very good care of your own pets. Make sure that they're leashed and fenced. Set your food inside so that it doesn't attract wildlife to come and eat the food. Clean up your yards to keep them from growing accustomed to your backyard as a good food source because they're smart and if you provide them with foodsource, like leftover fruit from your fruit tree or leftover vegetables, they're going to take advantage of that and they're going bring themselves into town and towns aren't real good for wildlife and wildlife for sometimes hard on towns."
Glass said if you do see a baby fawn, you can report it if you wish, but he advises not to touch or move that fawn if you can all help it, as, "Mama deer is coming back and 99 percent of the time, that's what they're doing."
"If you do happen to find that the deer's injured or you've had a 24-hour surveillance over the three or four days and mom doesn't show up, then you can give us a call, if you believe that the baby deer is in distress. But most of the time, it's when you're not watching, it's late at night, it's early in the morning, where mom was going come back, check on the fawn, make sure everything's good, and move on."
Anyone with questions about animals in their yard can call 1-800-567-4224.
While the season is coming soon when the fawns will start to nibble, their mothers are their main food source.
So how do you keep deer out of your yard?
"If you take good care of your yard and just reduce the chance and likelihood of the deer finding food sources, picking up the fruit trees, picking up the rotten fruit that's fallen, cleaning up your guard and keeping your garden waste down to a minimum, that's going to reduce your likelihood of a deer finding your habitat to be perfect with their habitat," Glass noted.
Fawn or no fawn, he also offered suggestions for what to do if deer are eating your trees or gardens.
"A good fence sure helps, and there are some food-safe chemical products that we can place on top of the gardens to keep your rose bushes and your vegetable gardens looking good and tasting terrible for the deer," he said. "When you pick it up, you can wash that product off. It's all food-safe products and you can keep them out that way."
"Some folks will go to the point of having motion-activated lights or motion-activated sprinkler systems that will work," he continued. "Your local feed stores your garden supply centres have those products, so long as they're applied as per manufacturers directions, they're safe. They just leave a real bad taste in the deer's mouth and they choose something else to eat."
Glass noted there are also options like motion-activated lights, motion-activated water spray, and motion-activated sirens, although the sirens would depend on the tolerance of your neighbours. Also, a barking dog on your property is a tremendous deterrent for wildlife.
"All those things have worked in the past to just spook the deer away and make it uncomfortable for them, and they move on to someplace that they feel is safer."
Glass added that there is no proven correlation between Chronic Wasting Disease, or any disease, and abandoning baby deer.