Another Deer Encounter – Photo: L. Weikel

Another Deer Another Dollar    

After my session with a client today, I made a quick stop for a couple groceries. As I left the store, I decided to take the slightly more circuitous route home, which is actually my favorite way because it takes me alongside my beloved Tohickon. Almost always, when I take that route, I also give in to the temptation to stop and write for several minutes. Since it was drizzling out, I figured Karl wouldn’t want to walk, so the prospect of writing a page or two in my journal beckoned enticingly.

As I rounded the corner and approached a turnoff close to the creek, I encountered this sight: a man with his van door askew, seeming to herd a small deer into the front seat. I stopped a fair distance away, trying to get a better idea of what, exactly, I was seeing, and not wanting to add to the confusion by pulling up too close.

I hadn’t been observing for more than minute when I realized the little one was definitely confused, and didn’t seem to be readily scampering off into the brush as the man was clearly trying to persuade it to do. It was hard to tell whether her sight was impaired, but it was clear she didn’t know which way to turn.

Dazed and Definitely Confused

At first, I rolled down my window and asked if I could help. His vehicle was a little over the center line and it was dangerously close to a corner where I know people often approach at a good, if oblivious, clip. The man welcomed my help, thinking maybe the two of us could herd her with more success. He said he’d just come upon her before I arrived and she’d almost walked right into the side of his van. He believed she’d recently been hit by a car – grazed, perhaps – but was probably going into shock.

Together, and with the rather aggressive and unexpected aid of another man who’d stopped behind my car, jumped out of his vehicle, and insisted upon yelling and waving his hands at her, trying to scare or bully her into getting off the road, we at least managed to steer her to the side of the road that had a deer trail leading off into the brush. She refused to get off the road, though.

Rush Hour

When cars started piling up in both directions (remember, this is a country road; the trickier part was that it was right around 5:30 p.m.), the first man impulsively picked the deer up and placed her on the bank of weeds and brush just off the paved portion of the road.

Stunned, she just stood there, not more than two feet from the edge of the road. The drizzle had turned to a more steady rain by this time, and the four or five cars that had stopped in both directions had taken turns and moved along. Three or four stopped to ask if they could help. Most, sadly, barely put their foot near the brakes at all as they rounded the turn and came upon us.

Calling For Backup

As soon as he picked her up and placed her on the side of the road, the first man left. Another had parked his pickup on a triangular patch of land about a hundred feet away and came over to the deer and me. He suggested we call the police. Instead, I tried calling AARK, our local wildlife rehabilitation foundation, but of course they were closed for the day. No matter what we did, we could not get her to budge from where the first man had ‘deposited’ her. And neither one of us trusted that she wouldn’t immediately dart back into the road if we left her where she was.

 

I called 911 and let them know our situation. About 15 minutes later, an officer arrived. In the meantime, the man, who introduced himself as John, and I stuck with her. As you can see from my photos, she let me get very close to her; in fact, I petted her head and neck, cooed and spoke softly to her the entire time, telling her that she needed to get further off the road and bed down. John said he’d heard a young deer had been wandering around the neighborhood the past few days; word was that the mother had been hit and killed and the youngster was lost without her.

When the policeman arrived, he was very sympathetic, but his options were limited. In fact, because she was not in the roadway at the moment, he could not technically do anything.  (If she had been in the road…the option was not a pretty one.)

Banged and Confused

Neither John nor I were comfortable leaving her so close to the road, nor did we want her to be ‘put down.’ Being up so close to her, it did look like she’d been hit – grazed or banged her head – because she had some blood coming out of her nostril. Not a lot. And there was a little on her foreleg, but she clearly had no broken bones.

I was reminded of my screech owl, Hootie, who’d flown into my driver side door one snowy January night and nearly knocked himself out. (A story for another day.) That experience had taught me that animals can be extremely resilient if given an opportunity to heal.

Into the Thicket

Once I realized we humans were just hemming and hawing, I decided to do something. I climbed up the rain-slicked, slight embankment so I was right beside her (hoping she wouldn’t get scared and dart out toward John and the policeman), picked her up, and started guiding her deeper into the thicket. I was delighted to see the vast amounts of poison ivy all around my sandaled feet. At one point, she balked and suddenly backed up, squeezing between my legs. The weeds and pricker bushes were positioned such that I had to carefully pick my way around them and circle back to get behind her once again and start all over.

All this time, John, the policeman, and another person who’d pulled up (I believe John’s daughter-in-law, from their conversation) were chatting and, I assume, watching me act as an erstwhile deerpoke-cum-whisperer. After a few more mutually clumsy thrusts and lunges deeper into the brush, she calmly looked up at me, bent her forelegs and knelt in front of me. She then gently settled herself into a bedding position and assured me she’d stay for the night.

It was raining softly. I was a bit chilled. But she was at least somewhat protected from the harshest of the elements. We all agreed that we’d done what we could, and it was up to her and Mother Nature to see if she would survive.

Yet another deer encounter…hopefully this one has a good ending as well.

 

(T-779)