Fawn Killed on My Road

Photo by Paul Sundberg Photography

As I drove home this afternoon I could see ahead some small animal had been killed almost in front of my driveway.  My first thought was that it was a squirrel because of the red color, but as I came nearer I realized it was much too big to be a squirrel. Then I feared it might be one of my red tabby cats.  But no, as I finally came to a stand still in front of the little body I could clearly see that it was a tiny fawn. My stomach flip flopped and my heart did the same. This was such a sad sight, the poor little innocent body lying in the road with hardly a scratch on it. Left there for the buzzards to clean up or another car to further mangle its tiny body. Careless driver!

I parked in my driveway and walked back the 50 feet or so to the poor little body. The fawn couldn't have been more than a day or two old and looked so much like the one pictured here by Paul Sundberg Photography. For a minute I thought it might just be stunned. But then I noticed the belly was torn. It hadn't been dead maybe half an hour, no blood and just a little fluid.  Rigor mortis had not set in.
I picked up the tiny body and took it to my car where I had a garbage bag.  A storm was coming up and has been blowing all evening so I will have to wait until morning to bury it.  It's little body will be buried next to Violets still born calf from last month.

Come fall I'll be anxious to have my hunting buddies thin out the white tailed deer population on the farm. It's not good for the deer to become too numerous. Several young bucks are hanging around the place eating my roses and the tops off the raspberry bushes.  But my heart goes out to this tiny baby who didn't even get one good summer of life before one of the cars that roar down our little country road snuffed out its existence.