The first rescue call Sharnell Fee received after she started the Wildlife Center of the North Coast eleven years ago was for a deer that had been hit on U.S. Highway 30 east of Astoria. She arrived at the scene quickly, but it was obvious that nothing could be done for the female blacktail. A state trooper was doing his best to clean up the mess on the highway when he called Sharnelle over.

“Hey, part of this deer is moving,” he said.

Fawn Fawn, WCNC patient No. 1, was still alive in her birth sack. Her only injury was a head laceration that subsequently developed into a cowlick. Tiny though she was, Patient #1 was successfully nursed into adulthood and then was released on the 109-acre WCNC property.

Perhaps grateful for the second chance, Fawn Fawn has remained on the refuge and is quite comfortable around WCNC volunteers and humans in general. She especially likes handouts of cracked corn which gives her a bit of extra energy when the grass quality is poor or if she is pregnant.

Despite her lack of fear of humans and her poor instincts about car traffic (A car hit her on Oregon Route 202 and broke her hip and/or pelvis about 5 years ago, which resulted in a limp and a twinge-inducing audible click as she walks), she is more than twice the average age of other black-tailed deer in the area and has probably been responsible for most of the local population by virtue of her reliable production of two offspring a year.

Packy Coleman and Teresa Retzlaff, who own 46 North Farm just up the highway from the WCNC, recently hosted a North Coast Slow Food potluck in their newly-completed hoop house. Fawn Fawn and one of her offspring were grazing further down in the field from the hoop house, almost submerged in the tall, swaying grass. Teresa mentioned that there used to be two fawns in the family. We watched for a while, but no second fawn appeared.

I didn’t mention it to Teresa and Packy, but at that point, the WCNC had received three fawns from separate locations that turned out to be blind due to what appeared to be a brain defect or infection. Typically, deer mothers keep the fawns stationary after birth for a few days and then will relocate them.

During the initial nursing or relocation, the mothers of these fawns apparently recognized that they were not fully functional and so abandoned them. The folks who brought them into the WCNC discovered them wandering about and crying piteously. I wondered if the missing fawn had suffered a similar fate.

A week later, the annual WCNC Open House brought a steady stream of visitors to the center. Packy and Teresa hiked through a back field for their first visit to the hospital since moving to the farm. I asked about Fawn Fawn.

“We’ve still only seen one,” Packy said.

After a tour of the hospital and outside enclosures, we made our way to the field in back of the house pelican cage to take a look at the stunning view of the bend in the river and the giant beech tree that overshadows everything there.

As we neared the gate to the field, I involuntarily jumped when something large moved in the grass at my feet. Looking down, I realized that I had almost stepped on a fawn, who was sleepily eyeing me from below in her circle of flattened grass. Could it be? We quietly made our way around the baby to the river bank and appreciated the view and the magnificent beech, illuminated in the late afternoon sun.

As we walked back to the center, we saw that the fawn, now back asleep, was still in her grassy hiding place. And across the driveway, in a neighboring field, a doe was staring intently at us and beyond her was a grazing fawn. It was too far to see if there was a cowlick on the doe’s head, but as we silently filed by the sleeping fawn close to us, I thought I heard the click of a poorly-healed hip as the doe bounded away, satisfied that her faith in humans was once again rewarded.

This is a column about local Cannon Beach wildlife and the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, P.O. Box 1232, Astoria, OR 97302. The WCNC is a non-profit, licensed rehab facility located on Ore 202, just outside of Olney. WCNC can always use monetary or volunteer help. Please call Sharnelle Fee, the WCNC director at (503) 338-0331 if you would like to assist in some way. More information can be found at www.coastwildlife.org”www.coastwildlife.org.

© 2010 Mark Albrecht