Wild Life: Dropping Fawns
- Riley Woodford
- Jun 18
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 10
The forests surrounding Juneau have become a brushy nursery this month. There are plenty of baby animals and mothers to consider, but I’d like to highlight fawns and does. Sitka black-tailed deer are particularly important to us, and recent years (specifically winters) have been kind to deer here.
I work with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Juneau, and one of the best parts of my job is writing about animals. I’m able to work with biologists in the field and gain some hands-on insights to share. I also enjoy camera trapping – wildlife photography using motion-triggered cameras. One year ago, I got my first picture of a fawn-of-the-year on the summer solstice, June 20. In the picture, the fawn is right at the heel of the doe. Its gangly legs make it look a little bigger than it really is — the spotted fawn weighs about as much as my cat.
When the fawns are very young, in their first weeks, a doe will leave them alone for hours in a sheltered hiding place while she forages. She’s nursing and needs to eat. The doe is a more conspicuous target for a predator, but she’s also fast. The fawn is not yet agile, and it’ll be weeks before it can outrun a bear. It’s safer hidden in tall grass, ferns and undergrowth, or a berry thicket, with virtually no scent.
If a predator like a black bear does encounter a doe and fawn, another strategy comes into play. The doe will jump and bolt, fleeing the scene — and drawing the bear’s attention and distracting it. The fawn will collapse into the undergrowth, lay still and silent, and there’s a chance the bear will overlook it.
People sometimes find unattended fawns and assume they are abandoned. They should be left alone. The mother will be back soon. Don’t kidnap baby animals!
Bears overlook some of those fawns, but they are a prime snack for bears in early summer. Studies indicate that about half the fawns born on Prince of Wales Island are eaten by black bears in the first three weeks. I was there few years ago during June and it seemed like every other pile of bear scat had tiny hooves in it.
Mortality can be high for fawns but does are prolific when habitat is good and winter snow isn’t deep and persistent. Twins are the rule, and triplets are not uncommon. A doe will typically breed her second year (and generally deliver just one fawn the first time), then have fawns every year until she is 10 or 12. And despite those early solo forays to forage, they are attentive mothers.
The maternal instincts and protective tendencies of a doe can be used to the advantage of deer biologists. I worked on a research project near Petersburg, and we needed to capture does. We darted them at close range and while they were sedated, we equipped them with GPS collars. These enabled researchers to track their locations and learn how they use their home ranges over the seasons.
To catch deer, we called them in. This is not the bleating call used by hunters targeting bucks in the fall. This is a higher-pitched, squeakier cry, intended to evoke a lost fawn. This was particularly effective early in summer, when fawns are more vulnerable, and maternal instincts are strongest. Over the course of the summer does become less responsive.
In a week in late July, we called in deer about 30 times. We accessed habitat south of town via gravel logging roads and pulled off at vantage spots overlooking muskeg meadows and forest edges. Generally, the biologist darting would hide in a clump of shore pine a bit into the muskeg, and I’d call from the shoulder of the road. Sometimes two or three does that were together would respond. In many cases, after blowing a single quick call a doe would erupt from the trees and bolt across the muskeg in our direction. Others were more wary. They’d step in on high alert and cautiously approach, circling around, sniffing the air, ears cocked and swiveling as they scanned. There are links to videos at the end of the article.
Hunters who call deer know the range of responses that a call can elicit. In fall, deer calls are intended to bring in bucks but will occasionally attract does. In mid-summer, only once did those “fawn calls” get a response from male deer – two almost-identical-looking spike bucks stepped out into the open, looked our way, and moseyed back into the underbrush.
In one case I called in a pair of does as the biologist with the dart projector stood ready, 25 yards in front of me by a patch of scrubby shore pines. The does ran up to her, stopped a dozen yards short, and began stomping their front hooves. Their bold message conveyed, they turned and ran off. The brief encounter was not a good darting opportunity.
A few weeks later in August after I’d returned to Juneau, the researcher reported that does had almost completely quit responding to calls. The fawns are getting big by late summer, they’re more independent, mostly weaned, and getting nimble. By early September, most fawns have shed their spots and sport a more typical summer black-tailed deer coat, with the reddish tan hair. The young bucks show a small dark spot between each eye and ear, the beginning of the antler pedicle — by fall they’ll be known as button bucks. In November, their mother will mate again. In winter, the pregnant does and their almost yearlings tend to stay together and may be seen in their drabber, tan winter coats.
• Riley Woodford produces the Sounds Wild! radio show and Alaska Fish and Wildlife News. He teaches outdoor skills classes and bear safety and has written several wildlife viewing guides. He is the statewide information officer with the Division of Wildlife Conservation, based at the state ADF&G headquarters near the whale park.
Videos
More on Deer Research in Southeast Alaska from Alaska Fish and Wildlife News
