Hobbled fawn in Terra Linda on the mend

Jennifer Upshaw
Marin Independent Journal

August 12, 2008

Let the healing begin.

A deer on Terra Linda's Quail Hill was on the road to recovery Monday after animal-care workers tranquilized, captured and treated the famous fawn, hobbled by irrigation equipment that had become affixed to her hoof.

For weeks, animal-care workers stalked the animal with help from neighbors, who for months had kept tabs on the disabled deer. The issue of how to deal with the fawn had been a lightning rod as the community called upon the Marin Humane Society - initially reluctant to disturb a wild animal - to immediately intervene.

Early Monday morning, 6-year-old Jimmy McNair spotted the timid animal nesting under his family's deck. Jimmy is the son of Mike and Stephanie McNair, who helped spearhead the campaign to save the deer.

A team of rescuers moved in, firing a dart at the emaciated deer, which stumbled just a few feet before succumbing to the drug.

"She stood up and sort of walked around just a little bit," said John Reese, Marin Humane Society chief operating officer. "She didn't get too far."

After swaddling the deer in blankets and towels, rescuers from the Marin Humane Society and the San Rafael-based animal rehabilitation group WildCare got to work with help from volunteers such as Mike McNair, who said he used PVC cutters to slice through the plastic irrigation disc.

Once rid of the disc, workers amputated the swollen and badly damaged portion of hoof, cleaned the wound, applied a topical antibiotic, administered fluids intravenously and whisked the docile creature into an animal control vehicle destined for WildCare's fawn hospital in West Marin. Her convalescence is expected to last weeks, not months, officials said.

Once recovered, she will be released back in the Quail Hill area.

Rescuers were gleeful.

"That's why we all do this job," said an exuberant Melanie Piazza, WildCare's director of animal care. "Just pride of being able to help."

"It couldn't have gone better," said Kim Lanham-Snyder, Marin Humane Society director of shelter resources.

Mike McNair said his family was relieved the ordeal for the deer was over.

"They are really not set up to do this," he said of animal service workers. "In the end, they did a good job.

"The public pressure, especially the media pressure, motivated them," McNair added. "Hopefully this thing lives."

San Rafael veterinarian Jim Clark of Pet Emergency and Specialty Care, a member of the Humane Society board who was on hand for the rescue, was upbeat, but said the fawn's fate remains somewhat tenuous.

"I would say at this stage now her body condition is somewhat debilitated," he said of the malnourished deer, whose injured hoof will be watched closely for signs of life-threatening infection. "Fundamentally, I think her outlook is good - I think it's greater than 50/50."

Removing her from the wild is not ideal, but in this case it was inevitable, Clark said.

"I didn't feel like we had a lot of choice," he said. "In my mind, this gives her the best chance of recovery."