Donate Now

Shasta Wildlife

Fawn Season at Shasta Wildlife Rescue — What You Need to Know

- back to blogs

Each year, as the days grow longer and the grass turns gold, the fawn calls begin.

Fawn season typically starts around mid-May here in Northern California. As expected, the first calls began coming in on May 17th, with concerned citizens reporting “abandoned” fawns.

The reality?

In most cases, these fawns are not abandoned at all. Newborn fawns can not keep up with adult deer and learn to quietly wait for their mother to return for them after she has fed. Never disturb a quiet fawn. They may instinctively follow as if you were the mother returning. Infants do make mistakes!

As the only permitted fawn rescuer in this region, my role is far more complex than simply taking animals into care. Each call requires careful assessment. I must determine whether a fawn is truly in distress — or if its mother has simply left it temporarily, which is a natural and essential behavior for deer.

🦌 Understanding the Limits — and the Urgency

We can only accept 10 fawns per season, so every call must be evaluated critically.
At the height of the season, I received many calls — at all hours of the day and night!

In 2025 alone, I received 323 calls — each one requiring patience, compassion, and careful decision-making. My voicemail stayed full, and my phone rarely stopped ringing.

Thankfully, most callers are simply trying to do the right thing. With a little education about natural deer behavior, they’re often able to return the fawn to its original location, allowing it to reunite safely with its mother.

🌿 Fawn Behavior — What You Should Know

Newborn fawns are small, fragile, and often appear underweight. This is completely normal.

A mother deer (doe) will intentionally leave her fawn in a safe, hidden spot while she forages for food and water, returning later to nurse and care for it. She may leave it for 12 hours. Again, this is completely normal behavior.

If You Find a Fawn:

The mother will not return if people or pets are nearby.
If you check back the next morning, the fawn has likely already reunited with its mother and moved on.

🚫 What NOT To Do

In a true emergency, unflavored Pedialyte or Gatorade may be offered until a rescuer arrives — but only trained professionals should take further action.

Fawns are not pets. Human interaction can cause extreme stress, and they do not tolerate injuries well. Many do not survive trauma from dog attacks or vehicle collisions.

I am not a Veterinarian. I cannot fix broken limbs or severe injuries. The most humane solution for the fawn is to be spared from suffering as quickly as possible. Please contact the Department of Fish and Wildlife or the Sheriff’s Department for assistance. I am not able to euthanize fawns or adult deer.

⚠️ A Cautionary Tale

Last season, a well-intentioned mother thought she was saving a dying fawn that she spotted laying near the road as she was driving her children to school. She placed the unresponsive fawn in the back seat with her children.

Once the car began moving, the fawn panicked, kicked free, and ended up in the front seat causing an accident. The fawn escaped apparently unharmed when a door was opened, but the children were injured, and the car was damaged.

This entire situation could have been avoided with a phone call and proper guidance.

* If you must transport a fawn, please place it into a secure animal crate and drape a towel over the door to keep the fawn calm while being moved.

🌲 Responsible Wildlife Co-exixtance

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of Northern California, surrounded by thriving wildlife habitats. But we must remember that wild animals rarely need human intervention. When we cross paths, give them space to do what they must. They have managed to survive long before we came and can manage just fine on their own. It is tempting to offer tasty treats to visiting deer but please resist the urge.

Feeding wildlife can cause them to become dependant and they can become aggressive at the expectation of being fed. Even worse they forego normal foraging and may starve instead of migrating in search of natural browse.

“A fed deer is a dead deer.”

Hunters sometimes leave feed to attract deer before hunting season opens. Once the season begins, those same deer are then easily harvested — having learned to associate humans with food instead of avoiding us as they should.

Legal hunting plays a role in managing populations, especially where predators are scarce, but feeding and habituating deer disrupts this balance in my opinion.

🏹 A Note on Hunting

On the first day of the 2025 season, I followed a Jeep down Highway 299 with a very small spike buck strapped to the back. It was difficult to see that such a young deer was taken so early.

While I support legal, ethical hunting , it just feels wrong to me to see yearling deer being taken. What is the point in killing such a small animal? There is very little meat and the horns are no trophy. That same buck could have grown quite a bit in a couple more years and been a much more worthy prize. I hope we can encourage a hunting culture that allows deer to mature before being harvested.

Ethical hunting respects not only the law but the life cycle of wildlife — honoring both the animal and the ecosystem it sustains.

🍼 Fawn Rehabilitation — Our Process and Challenges

Once a fawn enters our care, every effort is made to keep it wild:

But we face real limitations:

💚 Seeking the Right Volunteer

As we look toward the 2026 season, our mission continues — but we cannot do it alone.

We’re seeking a committed, qualified volunteer who:

This is not a petting zoo. The fawns are rarely touched. Watching them leave us as wild deer is deeply rewarding.
If you believe this is something you were born to do, please reach out.

📬 Contact Information

Shasta Wildlife Rescue
Located in Anderson, California
🌐 Visit: shastawildlife.org
📞 Call: 530-365-9453 (Leave a message)

✉️ Mail: Attn: Rebeccah PO Box 1173, Anderson, CA 96007