Unexpected Visitor

Since we moved our offices to Baileys Harbor in April, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in visitors who stop by our office on Hwy 57 to say hi, but about 10 days ago we got our most unexpected visitor yet.

A baby fawn stumbled up to our front door, looking lost and scared. Less than two feet tall, our visitor’s mother was nowhere to be found, and the fawn curled up next to the flower pot by our door looking scared and alone. None of us in the office or the two passersby who stopped to help knew what to do, but we certainly didn’t want to see her wander back onto a highway with cars and trucks screaming by. We grabbed a small box and ushered her inside of it, an effort our little friend was surprisingly receptive of.

Once we got her comfortably inside the box, we carried her across the street and back to the swamp from which we were told she came from. To my surprise, she didn’t make a fuss or try to jump out of the box, even when we put it down and backed away. We weren’t sure if we should just leave her there (and I had half a mind to take her home), so we put in a call to animal control, but got no answer. A call to an area vet yielded little advice too, so after a while, we left her in a soft spot in the tall grass. A few hours later I checked the spot again and she had moved on, I hoped with her mother.

I don’t know if the young family was reunited and can’t be sure of our little visitor’s fate, but the next morning a Baileys Harbor jogger reported passing by a little fawn and its mother, not far from our office.