Caring for the Wildlife That Stray Into the Suburbs

It’s baby-animal season in the towns north of New York. But with many of the mothers gone missing, humans are stepping in to help out.

A fawn’s first role model is the forest floor. The white spots on its brown coat resemble the dappled beams of sunlight that cascade through the trees, breaking up the outline of the deer’s figure. The camouflage helps keep baby white-tailed deer safe from bears and bobcats as the mother doe forages elsewhere. While its mother is away, the fawn hides in tall grass and remains vigilant — eyes open and ears pricked, listening for movement. When the doe returns, she feeds her baby milk and licks it all over to remove its scent. She licks its genital areas to coax the fawn to urinate or defecate, and then she may even eat its waste. Her cleaning ensures that predators will not detect a whiff of her baby. But sometimes the doe does not return — hit by a car, perhaps. If the fawn is left alone for too long, its ears curl up, a sign of dehydration, and flies may cloud around its uncleaned body, drawing attention. The youngest deer are often too weak to stand, and in New York’s Westchester County, many are found beside the bodies of their dead mothers on the side of the road, according to Patrick Moore, the president of Animal Nation, a nonprofit animal-rescue group based in Rye, N.Y.