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Mike Roux: Don't be tempted to bring wild babies home

A wildlife specialist in Springfield got a call recently from a citizen who had a newborn white-tailed deer fawn. He gets these calls every year, just as every Illinois Department of Natural Resources office does.

The fawn and its mother were near a highway, when traffic spooked the doe. She bounded into nearby woods. The fawn dropped to the ground, where it lay still.

So far, so good. However, the fawn was in plain sight of the highway. Traffic stopped, and a well-intentioned driver decided the fawn was abandoned and took it home. Then he called the IDNR.

The fawn was fine where it was. Left alone, the doe would have come back and led its young to a safer place. But now you have a wild animal out of its element, a nice person who has unwittingly broken the law and decreasing chances of the fawn's survival with every passing hour.

This situation plays out dozens of times each year with deer, opossums, robin chicks and tiny cottontail rabbits. People do not see the mothers nearby and decide the young are orphans. But these well-intentioned adoptions are not in the animals' best interest.

Most young birds found on the ground have simply grown too big for their nests and are still being fed by their parents. Young birds or mammals brought inside cannot survive on bread soaked in milk. Human food is no substitute for the natural foods they receive in the wild. These often are partially digested or otherwise prepared by parents.

If a child brings home a young animal, explain that the baby's parents miss it, and you need to take it home. Have them show you where they found the baby animal and put it back. Then leave the area so the adults feel safe returning.

Retrievers sometimes find cottontail rabbit nests and happily deliver saliva-covered but otherwise unharmed baby rabbits to their owners. Again, return them to the nest. Find the nest by accepting the dog's gift, then telling it to "Fetch!" and follow it back to the nest. Put the dog indoors, and then replace the bunny and cover the nest with material your dog may have nosed aside.

Do not be surprised if the nest is empty the next time you check. After such a traumatic experience, a mother rabbit usually will move her young to a different location.

Similar solutions are advisable for deer fawns and other young wild animals found without obvious parental supervision. Wild parents do not act like humans, hovering around their young. Does visit their fawns only long enough to nurse them. By staying away the rest of the time, they avoid drawing predators' attention.

It is illegal to possess wild animals without a permit. More important, there are no vaccines to protect wild animals against rabies and other diseases, many of which can strike humans as well. Wild adoptions put people as well as animals at risk.

Parasites present another risk. Baylisascaris procyonis, a common parasitic round worm, is present in eight of 10 raccoons, but raccoons have a natural resistance. Humans do not. Baylisascaris can cause serious illness, particularly in children.

Even under the best of circumstances most animals born in the wild don't survive to adulthood, falling victim to disease, predators, inclement weather or just bad luck. That is why they produce many more young each year than are needed to perpetuate their species. Death is a necessary part of life in the wild.

This knowledge, along with an understanding of the dangers and problems involved, provide ample reason not to adopt wildlife.