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Wild Baby Animals

It was immediately following the melting of winter’s snow of 1940 that my cousin Buzz Besadny and I were hired to rake the huge lawn and clean the flowerbeds at one of the large homes in south Kewaunee. Both of us felt we were being greatly underpaid for the difficult job; as it turned out, one of our greatest rewards was we unexpectedly came upon a nest of baby Cottontails. Buzz and his dad, owning a good-sized rabbit hutch, were experienced in raising non-native rabbits, so Buzz said he’d take the baby Cottontails home and raise them, too. The babies were so small that he had to feed them milk using an eyedropper. Unfortunately Buzz learned that the cow’s milk was very different than Cottontail milk and the tiny animals, unable to digest it, soon perished.

Through the following years Buzz worked a lot with wild animals in his lifelong career with the Department of Natural Resources, and I learned with my teaching and work at The Ridges

Roy Lukes

Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Photo by Roy Lukes.

Sanctuary that it’s nearly always best to leave wild animal babies where you find them, that no one can care for them better than their parents. My guess is that White-tailed Deer fawns are the most frequently found, and the finders too often insist the animals were lost, their mother had been killed, etc. and the tiny fawns needed help.

Removing a fawn from where it was found is the biggest mistake one can make, simply because few people know what to feed them. Pasteurized cow’s milk is far different than doe’s milk. Emma Toft, for many years, fed raw milk straight from the cow to orphaned fawns brought to her and that apparently worked very well. Experts at animal rehab centers can properly feed and handle wild baby animals brought to them, but the rehab people in some cases wish the little creatures had been left where they were found.

Obviously there are exceptions, when the best choice is to take it to the center. Unfortunately our nearest rehab center is the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Green Bay. We are hopeful that the Open Door Bird Sanctuary, located near Jacksonport, will get enough donations to help them build a wild bird rehabilitation center (to learn more about this organization visit opendoorbirdsanctuary.org).

Once the White-tailed Deer fawns are born, usually in late May into early June, the young will remain with their mother for one year, until the doe gives birth to her next fawn(s). Then she will forcefully chase the yearlings away, and it’s then that so many of these suddenly-on-their-own and confused young deer are killed along roads. It is usually into their third year that deer begin to breed.

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Red Fox kit. Photo by Roy Lukes.

An important point not realized by most non-professional wildlife rescuers is that state, and sometimes federal, permits are required in order to have any form of wildlife in your possession. That includes most wild bird feathers and nests.

The young of Canada Geese are hatched about the first week of May, sooner or later depending upon weather conditions. These goslings will grow and remain with their parents until the following spring, when, fully grown as second-year birds they will head to the far North on their molting migration. Here they will molt, become flightless for several weeks, begin to fend for themselves and learn the ways of Canada Geese. In the following year, their third, they will mate and raise young, adding to the steadily growing goose population in our region.

Years ago, during the early 1960s, I came upon my first nests of baby Common Mergansers in late June while banding Herring Gulls on Jack Island. Ever since then they have ranked among my favorite birds. Unfortunately good nesting sites for these birds are becoming difficult to find.

The young, upon hatching, remain in the nest for not much more than a day before joining the parents and learning the challenges of finding their own food along the shore or in the water. These sleek water birds will be ready for mating in their second year. Increasing populations of predacious gulls, both the Herring and Ring-billed, along with Raccoons are making it more difficult each year for Mergansers to successfully raise broods.

Songbirds rank high as many people’s favorite forms of wildlife. With feeding birds being so popular, it is great fun watching families being raised. Very common in Door County is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak which is usually back here, following their winter in the South, by early May. We are always amazed at how quickly these beautiful singers are mated and ready for raising a family. The father Grosbeak is wonderful at caring and feeding the young once they fledge.

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Painted Turtles. Photo by Roy Lukes.

Frogs and toads have given us great pleasure with their natural camouflage and beauty, along with their fascinating life history. The American Toad, our only Door County toad species, has frequently spent summers in our garden, much to our gratitude, as well as in many wetlands. It was often during our field classes at Jackson Harbor on Washington Island in late May that we observed

schools of thousands of tadpoles of the giant race of American Toad in the shallows near shore. This is the only amphibian whose tadpoles form into schools as they live and grow.

The Green Frog is interesting and different in that it takes two years for their tadpoles to complete their metamorphosis into adult Green Frogs. It is when you come upon the tadpoles in the later part of their first year that you will be surprised at their large size, compared to the tiny size of the toad tadpoles.

The Painted Turtles appear to be holding their own quite well in the county. Quietly kayak or canoe along the shores of a few of the northern lakes, including Kangaroo and Europe, and you are sure to see these quiet creatures sunning near the water. However, locating their babies is a matter of pure luck. Usually their eggs are laid during the latter part of summer and not hatched until the following year, often in late May or early June. Several years ago a friend living a few hundred yards west of Kangaroo Lake watched an adult female Painted Turtle lay her eggs in the soft soil next to a Peony bush in his front yard. We told Ray to cover the site of the eggs with a cage made from chicken wire in order to prevent predators from digging up and eating the eggs.

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Common Merganser. Photo by Roy Lukes.

The following year on Mother’s Day, Ray called to tell us that the baby turtles were climbing out of the ground and were inside the cage, so over Charlotte and I went to photograph those gorgeous and seldom seen little baby turtles. Having finished taking pictures, the cage was removed from the hatchlings and amazingly they headed straight for the west shore of the lake. We later learned that the atmosphere directly above the reflective body of water can be analyzed by the turtles and provides them with their directions to the water.

The life histories of the many forms of wildlife in Door County, ranging from the tiniest to the largest, are fascinating to observe and learn about. Do your best to unlock some of their secrets and become a genuine “partner in nature.”

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