First Camera Trap Photos of 2011 Fawns

Well, it was bound to happen this time of year......everything's giving birth or hatching eggs, it seems....but the new fawn pictures are starting to come in.

I'd flushed up a little one in the woods at a different study site not long ago (see First Fawn of the Year posted on May 24, 2011), so I knew the does in the area were birthing.

Here are a few recent pics that are so cute you'll go hoarse saying "AAWWWWWW!!!!"

This may be a brand new fawn as the momma spends alot of time licking it all over it's entire body, maybe still cleaning the scent off from the birth.

Another coupla pictures from a different location at the same study site taken the next day.  Might be the same pair, but the fawn in the pictures below looks alittle smaller to me.



The tough part for these little ones now is surviving. 

Vreeland et al. (2004) radio-collared and tracked over 200 fawns starting at less than 3 weeks of age to determine causes of mortality.  110 of these fawns existed in agricultural landscapes and 108 of the fawns existed in forested landscapes in Pennsylvania.   At 9 weeks, fawn survival was 72.4% in the areas dominated by agriculture, and only 57.2% in forests.  At 34 weeks, fawn survival was only 52.9% in agriculture and 37.9% in forests.  Predation, split evenly between Black Bears and Coyotes, accounted for 46.2% of 106 mortality recorded through 34 weeks.  Other natural causes were responsible for 27.4% of the mortality observed. 

They also reported that the fawn survival rates they observed did NOT result in negative white-tailed deer population growth. 

Literature Cited:

Vreeland, J.K., D.R. Diefenback, B.D. Wallingford. 2004. Survival rates, mortality causes and habitats of Pennsylvania white-tailed deer fawns.  Wildlife Society Bulletin 32:542-553.