Fawning Over Fawns

As some of you may know I am working in Louisiana this summer. If you would like to learn more about what I am doing here check out my previous blog. One of my primary responsibilities is to care for the fawns on the farm. These little fawns are some of the cutest things I have ever seen. Once you become their "mother" through constant feedings they begin to trust you and will run up to you if you have a bottle or they think you do and they will lick you. The doe fawns are the only ones we bottle feed except in special circumstances. They are hard not to love. There are any different aspects of taking care of the fawns and it all starts just a few hours after they are born.

                                           

To start out the lives of our fawns we bring them up to the house between six and twelve hours after birth. We do this so we can do what we call "tagging." This involves vaccinations, probiotics, measuring, and ear tagging. During this process we also take hair samples so that their DNA can be recorded and their pedigree can be certified. They are also assigned a microchip so they can be tracked and permanently identified. Some of the measurements we take are weight and chest girth. These measurements make sure that the fawn is at a healthy weight. During the tagging process we write everything down to make sure that all aspects are done. After everything else is done we put an ear tag in their ear. Doing it when they are young makes so that they do not remember it and it is a good time.

                                           

Feeding our fawns is one of the most important things we do with them. All together we are currently feeding 16 fawns. Two of these are bucks who had extenuating circumstances in which they needed to be bottle fed. Normally we would only feed the does fawns. Feeding the doe fawns helps to make them more docile so that you can approach them, work them, and handle them in a safer manner. We feed the fawns a million replacer that we mix into warm water. We were feeding the fawns four times per day and that will be changing to three times per day. These babies love to eat and will climb over each other and nearly break down the door to get their bottles. While feeding the fawns we wipe their bottoms just like their mother would. This stimulates them to defecate. We stop doing this once we see them go on their own. We record how much the fawns drink at each feeding, what there feces are like, and any medicines they get. Record keeping is very important. Feeding the fawns is enjoyable because they usually do crazy and adorable things.

Giving medicine to the fawns is also very important. We have had a few instances where fawns have needed medicine. One of the most common problems we face is scours, or diarrhea. We determine when we need to treat for this when we have runny feces. To combat scours we give them scour medicine and if that does not work we give them activated charcoal. Usually a combination of these two will work. It is a worse situation if we find blood in the stool. This can be an indication of different kinds of parasites. To treat this we gave multiple kinds of medicines. There was some we had to give to the whole herd of fawns to make sure they didn't have parasites and one was a dewormer. We managed to get it under control twice. One of the last major medical issues we had was an ulceration of an eye on a buck. We treated this buck for over ten days using a regiment of ophthalmic solutions. His eye was very cloudy when we started and now we is much better and now he can see again. All of these different ailments have been an educational experience and we have done well in treating all of them.

Before                                    After

It is also important that we keep an eye on the bucks that we are not bottle feeding. After they are up and running around and nursing we do not worry about them as much but until then we check on them and make sure they are alive and nursing.

      

Taking care of these babies has been very rewarding and a learning experience. It has been great to see these babies grow up and the change is easy to see when you look at our youngest and oldest doe fawns. They have grown so much and are so sweet.  They are adorable and I will miss them when I leave.

               













 All Photos By Justin Hohlen

Do You Know the Truth?

Many of us are raised on false ideas and thoughts of how some things are. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure people were taught by their parents who heard it from their parents who heard it from their parents and so on. Or maybe those who we learn from have not yet caught up on the latest scientific discoveries. That's the great thing about people like Justin, the main blogger on this site. He thrives to educate readers on wildlife, the issues going on in related fields and also reaches out to others wildlife enthusiasts who may have some different educational input. Today I am here to educate you on a species that I have a bit more experience with than Justin might. So, I'd like to know, do you know the truth about black bears?

This summer I have had the privilege to surround myself in a whole new environment. I am currently an intern at the North American Bear Center - an educational facility in the north-woods of Minnesota. Here I am exposed to years of research on black bears while getting the amazing opportunity to work with these magnificent animals daily. I am starting to understand the different behaviors our ambassador bears display and am able to relate that to the wild bears I have been able to observe while being here. Before coming to the center, I believed things about black bears that I now know are common misconceptions. The media portrays a variety of myths about black bears. Today we will talk about the top three I hear people mention at the center; black bears are vicious, black bears are more likely to attack when they lose their fear of people, and (a fun one) black bears love honey.

Black bears have been around for quite some time. They were around back in the Pleistocene Age where they had to coexist with large, predatory animals like the dire wolf, American lion, giant-short faced bear and sabre-toothed cats. Today black bears are very timid and shy animals. Their behaviors are due to them evolving around those other animals I mentioned above. In order to survive, the black bear portrays a very shy nature. Overtime, they developed an excellent sense of both hearing and smell. These two senses give them the opportunity to sense any danger far before it is close enough to cause any issues. Black bears have a "run first, ask questions later" mentality. If they feel that any danger is near, they will most likely run to and climb up the nearest tree. The predatory animals in the Pleistocene Age were not great climbers. This ability allowed the bear to easily get away from any potential attacks. Those behaviors and abilities have carried on over time to allow the black bear to continue to survive.

Many people believe that when a black bear loses it's fear of people they are more likely to attack. That, of course, is not true or I would not be mentioning it today. Between the years of 1900 and  2007, there were 60 killings of people from black bears in North America. Out of those 60 killings, 47 of them were in very remote areas of Canada and Alaska where black bears and people did not often cross paths. When a black bear loses the fear, they are still very cautious. If the bear has an open area to run away, they are most likely going to. When they are trapped and unable to get away from the human, they are more likely to lash out aggressively in defense or hurt the person by running them over in an attempt to escape.

Now, our last misconception for this blog, black bears love honey. Sorry kids, but that's not necessarily true. One of the main reasons people may believe that is because of the cartoon character, Winnie the Pooh. To make things a bit better, I will tell you that Winnie the Pooh was a real bear. Way back in 1914, Lt. Harry Colebourn purchased a young cub whose mother had passed away. He named that cub Winnipeg which later inspired someone to create the Winnie the Pooh character. Unfortunately, the creators of that character didn't quite understand a black bears diet. Black bears are omnivores, however, they mainly consume young-growth vegetation, berries and nuts. In the Minnesota area, less than 10% of a black bears diet is made of protein, in which they get from the nuts and immature insects. They will often rip open dead logs or destroy ant colonies to consume those immature insects. Black bears will also raid beehives specifically for the bee pupae and the honey just serves as an extra treat.

The purpose of this blog today is to not only get you thinking about the misconceptions about black bears, but I hope that it will also help open your mind to other topics as well. The media, folklore, and good-old campfire stories sometimes give off inaccurate information which can lead to unnecessary fear and actions. Get out, go places, explore and learn.

Deer Farming and Daniel Thomas Whitetails

For the next couple of weeks I will be working with the theme of captive raised wildlife and next week you will see baby deer. This week I will be talking about an industry that I have already started to become involved in and the good that it does as well as my current internship. Humans have raised deer for thousands of years, the circumpolar people of Eurasia use them as pack animals. Only recently has the deer grown to its current size in the United States, There are currently farms in many states and in places around the world, such as New Zealand. Texas is the state with the most farms at a number that is higher than 1,500. People raise many different species of deer; sika, axis, fallow, elk, Père David's, moose; with the most popular species being whitetail. People raise deer for several different reasons including: meat, breeding, and stocking preserves. Raising deer for breeding and raising them to stock hunting preserves are very common, especially for whitetails, with raising deer for meat far less common due to factors that I have yet to clarify. I do know that over 70% percent of the venison consumed in the United States comes from red deer that were raised in New Zealand. I want to work to change this so that we are consuming home-grown venison. Deer farming is awesome and I want to tell you more about it.

There are organizations that help deer farmers across the country; there are national organizations such as the North American Deer Farmers Association (NADeFA), which I am a member of, and the North American Elk Breeders Association. There are also associations in many states such as Whitetails of Wisconsin and Whitetails of Louisiana, I am a member of both. I enjoy being a member of these organizations as a student because they support the future of the industry by providing student and associate memberships at affordable rates.These organizations help farmers and ranchers by providing information and a network of people to communicate with. They are always friendly and will direct you to someone who can help you. NADeFA is how I was able to get this internship this summer. These associations also hold sales and expos where people can get to together and check out what others are offering, see the latest and greatest equipment, buy some deer or semen, and take classes and listen to speakers to further their education on deer. These associations also raise money through donations, membership fees, sales, and lobbying congress that will be put toward research to treat or end cervid diseases. The cervid diseases that research money goes to and that are harmful to deer include Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease/ Blue Tongue Virus (EHD/BTV). CWD was first identified in captive mule deer at a research facilitie and later found in other deer in Colorado and has since spread to much of the U.S. CWD can affect individual deer for years but is not very common in populations and many will argue that CWD has never killed the deer but a weakened immune system allows secondary diseases to invade. Many states have had CWD for decades and some are just now getting hit by it, places such as Arkansas. Many states that are just now encountering CWD are acting very strongly to the spread. In Texas they were having mass tests of these animals and since their was no live test that meant killing the deer. Now there has been more research and Texas allows some farms to do the live tests with proper training. States have also closed their borders meaning that no deer can be transported into their state. Both of these as well as other regulations can hurt deer farmers as much as they help. By killing the deer to test farmers lose their means of making money and closed borders prevents free trade and alters market prices. Farms are usually CWD accredited and not usually the spreader of CWD. New science shows that the prions that cause the disease are picked up through plants and are then transmitted by wild animals who are not aware of state borders. Funding from these deer associations is going to find a live test of CWD so that probably healthy deer do not need to be killed. EHD also kills deer at a high rate. It is widespread in the south but less severe and less common in the north but has higher mortality. EHD is spread by midge flies. I was fortunate enough to work on the tail-end of a project that Whitetails of Louisiana funded to test EHD vaccines. While it was not a large enough study to definitively determine how well the vaccines work it shows a trend that future work may follow. There is also not a lot known about cervid immune systems and what levels of immunity in the body are necessary to prevent infection. Endeavors like these are what deer association put their money to to help these animals and the people who care for and hunt them.



Last summer when I worked at the vet clinic I met a couple who raised deer and we were able to work with their deer on several instances. It was last summer that propelled me onto the course that I now choose to follow. Last fall I started looking for a job this summer and it was between working at a veterinary pharmaceuticals company in an R&D department and working at a zoo (maybe one in Wisconsin). While perusing the NADeFA website for reading topics I noticed that they had an internship section. I clicked on it and started reading. At that point I decided I wanted to work with deer this summer. At some point I started going through the listings and picking out the ones I wanted to apply to. I applied to a lot of them; several in Texas, one in Louisiana, one in Alabama, one in New York, one in Michigan, and a couple in Wisconsin. I really wanted to work in the south as I knew it would be very different than home and in particular I wanted Louisiana. I didn't hear back from many of them but I did hear back from the Louisiana farm; they had already selected their interns for this year. I was bummed but hopeful that I could find work at another farm. A week or so went by and I was contacted by Daniel Thomas, President of Whitetails of Louisiana, of Daniel Thomas Whitetails in Springhill, Louisiana. He had gotten my resume from the other farm and asked if I was interested in being an intern this summer. After a phone interview I thought about it for a couple days. I then responded that I would love to work there this summer. That is enough of a setup so let me tell you what I have been doing this summer.


This summer I have been doing all sorts of work related to the whitetails on this farm. One of my primary responsibilities here is taking care of the bottle-fed babies. The doe are bottle-fed to tame them and some bucks may be fed for many reasons. I also administer medicine to the babies that are sick or have issues. I also keep records of the fawns and help get them through a process we call tagging. This process involves vaccines, probiotics, weighing, and ear tagging. We can talk more about my experience with fawns next week. I also help with the older deer. I help feed them their rations. They get two different feeds twice a day; they get their normal feed in the morning and a special treat in the evening that is high in fat to keep their weight on. I also help herd the deer when we are moving them to other pens or vaccinating them. To vaccinate the doe I started out by blow-darting the ones that were pregnant so that their udder would not be hurt by the chute. I did a good job and was able to finally put my practice to use. After these does gave birth and all the others who were not pregnant they were ran through the chutes to be vaccinated. For vaccinations I draw up the vaccines and hold the doe so they can get their shots. The bucks require a different approach, we herd them in their pens to areas where Mr. Thomas shoots them with a dart-rifle and gives them their shot. I have learned a lot about handling deer through these practices.


I have also worked on many other projects. The EHD tests that were done by Whitetails of Louisiana were done on the farm I am working on. When we received the results I helped analyze them and determine what they showed. I was then able to contact several veterinarians and other professionals in the fiels with the results and get their opinions and provide them with the results to keep them up to date. I have also been working on creating a feed ration for the farm. We worked with a mill to create a ration that meets the needs of the farm and will start being used this fall. I also observed the does and evaluated them for several weeks to determine how close they were to giving birth. I was decent at determining how close they were but they are all individuals and develop and behave differently. As of today we have had 31 fawns.

I love the deer farming business and have loved working on the farm this summer. I will be sad when I have to leave in a month, but I know that this experience has been a great one for me. In a couple of weeks there is an expo and sale for Whitetails of Louisiana that I am really looking forward to attending and being able to talk to other deer farmers and check out their booths. I have had a very rewarding summer and not only have I grown but I have watched the fawns grow and I have watched small racks of antlers on the bucks grow into beautiful, impressive monsters. I think raising deer is great and I hope to keep involved with it in the future. This summer has been great and I know it has helped propel me to do what I love in the future. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Pictures

All by Justin Hohlen

All pictures of bucks and fawns are when they have a lot more growing to do.

Wildlife Wednesday: Père David's Deer

There are many cases of something amazing happening in nature but rarely do they include people and the saving of a species. That is exactly what happened with the Père David's deer though. These cervids are interesting creatures that the Chinese and Japanese names for these deer translates as "four unlikes" because they are described as having "the hoofs of a cow but not a cow, the neck of a camel but not a camel,antlers of a deer but not a deer, the tail of a donkey but not a donkey." From that description and these pictures maybe you can understand what it looks like.

The Père David's deer is a funny looking deer. It has moderately long tail unlike many other deer and the antlers of the male branch toward the back but not in a way like elk or caribou do. The males may also grow two sets of antlers a year which is unique. These deer have a reddish-brown color in the summer and have a thick gray coat in the winter. They are found of water unlike most deer and like to swim. They also like to eat plants that are found in water which leads ecologists to believe they were found in swampy areas. Males can weigh 500 pounds and stand four feet at the shoulder. They have a lifespan greater than eighteen years

The Père David's deer were native to China where they are now extinct in the wild. The story of this species is fascinating. They used to roam throughout subtropical China but by the 1860's the animal was close to extinction. The emperor of China had one of the last viable populations in a walled and guarded preserve. A French priest, Pere David, decided he needed to see the deer but no one was allowed to look into the preserve. He managed to convince the guards to let him have one look. When he looked a herd of the deer walked into sight and he was astonished. He was determined to save the species and worked to have some of the animals brought to European zoos. The animals in the preserve were killed shortly afterwards when a flood came through and some drowned and those that escaped were eaten by the peasants who had no food. Then there was a revolt and troops went into the gardens and ate the deer. Pere David decided to gather up all the animals in Europe and moved them to Woburn Abbey in England. They remained here through World War I and then distributed to other places during World War II. They have since continued to breed and populations are kept in England and Texas. Ranches in Texas hold some of the largest populations of Père David's deer and have been critical in providing habitat for these animals.

Conservation efforts are looking to include a diversified breeding program for these animals because the lack of genetic diversity will make them more prone to disease and other ailments. Conservationists are skeptical that there is enough of their native habitat to establish wild populations in China. Currently there are about 2,000 deer in parks and reserves in China in 53 herds. There are many more than that found around the globe and numbers are increasing. The ranching of these animals has allowed their species to continue, even though in not the same manner as they once were.
Through raising these deer in captivity a species was saved and that is important. I hope one day to own a herd of these fascinating deer and participate in the conservation effort by breeding them well and donating some to be released in China.

Articles

IUCN Redlist

Ultimate Ungulate Guide (I hate the word ungulate also not a big fan of cetartiodactyla)

Saved By Chance

All About Exotics

Pictures

Stag in Water

Two Stags

Fawn

Elephants on the Brink

Today, I wanted to discuss about what has been going on the other side of the globe and maybe a little bit of what is going on in the states with elephants. As a child I have loved elephants, they are truly fascinating creatures and have always been an interest of mine and someday I would like to study them! Everyone knows what elephants look like, you have seen them in zoos, circuses, and in some cases at your local fair grounds. In today’s world elephants are struggling and need our help. Poaching is running rampant in Africa, where elephants are slaughtered for just their tusks and then those same tucks are being sold in the far east in Asian countries like China, Vietnam, and Laos to name a few. According to far eastern culture, they claim that the properties found in elephant tusks can cure all of these diseases and it’s not just elephants that are targeted for this; this also includes rhinos, tigers, etc.

There are no positive effects of poaching of elephants. Elephants suffer so much psychological and physical damage. For instance, the leader of a herd of elephants is the matriarch. She is the oldest and wisest member of the group and knows where water sources are at and where the best food is located. She leads her sisters, daughters, and grandchildren to these areas and all the other members of the herd rely on her. When poachers take out that one important part of the herd, the herd is lost and for a couple of days, usually a daughter or sister ends up becoming the new matriarch but the psychological side-effects of witnessing a family member is drastic. Studies have shown that elephants that witness the death of member, their stress levels increase and with the death is by humans they become more and more aggressive towards humans. The other side of this is the physical damage, now there have been survivors of poaching attempts, usually tell-tale signs are perfect circular holes in the ears of elephants or bullet holes near their shoulders or even their foreheads
.

Conservation groups have started to take action against the poaching of elephants. One group in particular that comes to my mind is the group called 96 elephants. The reason behind the name of 96 elephants is that this is an actual statistical number and that every day in Africa 96 elephants are killed each day for their ivory. This group has gone so far in protecting elephants and they have been very successful. For instance, within the last couple of years, Ivory trade with the U.S has been banned in a couple of states but just this year alone Ivory has been completely banned in the United States which is a really good thing for elephants.

Another instance that has occurred with saving elephants is that more and more people are starting to realize that elephants do not do well in captivity. Elephants are herd animals and require a lot of social contact, there have been some elephants in zoos around the U.S. and around the globe that are in an enclosure by themselves and without any social contact they develop a lot of psychological problems. In order to counteract this, zoos have been shipping their elephants to zoos and sanctuaries where they have a herd/family group that has been established, along with the space where the elephants can socialize in the space required for them to not have any problems at all. 

Now, in order to save elephants one thing needs to happen. People need to become more involved. Yes, we have banned ivory trade in the United States but poaching is still running rampant in Africa and Asia. The more people who are willing to save elephants, the better chance they have at surviving and having our future generations seeing these magnificent animals.

Articles

96 Elephants

Photos

Elephant Matriarch Herd

Sanctuary Elephants 

America's Bird

This weekend is the United States' two-hundred and fortieth birthday and to keep with the patriotic spirit I will be talking about our national bird and symbol, the bald eagle. We will also talk about the success story that is bald eagle conservation. Bald Eagles are majestic birds that are really amazing to see in the wild. I remember one day we went our to Saylorville Lake for ornithology lab; we saw well over fifteen bald eagles. The eagles were perched near the lake, flying over the lake, and catching fish. The ice on the lake was breaking up it was a beautiful sight. One of my other favorite encounters with a bald eagle was in Yellowstone. I was walking with a group of my friends back from the hotspring we had went to see on a river. As we walked back to our van we saw an eagle in the distance and it started to fly toward us. It flew directly overhead and we got a clear picture of how majestic it was. After reading these anecdotes you would probably find it hard to believe that bald eagles and other birds who eat a lot of fish faced extinction.

Post World War II the use of the chemical dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) rapidly increased for agricultural purposes. DDT was an effective measure to eliminate insects on crops as it was a pesticide. In 1972 Congress banned the use of DDT for agricultural purposes as it was shown to have negative effects on human health and the environment. In 1973 the Endangered Species Act was passed and in 1978 bald eagles were added to the list of federally endangered or threatened species. Bald eagles had very low numbers during the mid and late twentieth century due to poisoning and hunting of the birds that occurred before they were put on the ESA and the pollution that was occurring. Bald eagles, pelicans, osprey, and peregrine falcons suffered heavily from the use of DDT. When DDT was sprayed it killed the bugs which may fall into water where fish will eat the dead bugs. The DDT becomes concentrated in the fish and the birds eat the fish and large quantities of DDT are in their system. The DDT makes the eggs of these birds fragile so when mothers sit on them they smash them and kill the future off the species. It was estimated that there were only 412 nesting pairs in the 48 contiguous United States in the 1950's, way down from the 300,000-500,000 birds present in the 1800's.

The DDT ban allowed these species to recover to the more sustainable levels we have today. Eagles are also protected under other laws such as the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection of 1940 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as well as state legislation. The bald eagles are no longer listed on the Endangered Species Act since 2007 since they had done so well. Now there are over 10,000 nesting pairs in the lower 48 and that number will probably grow. The birds have made recoveries across the continent. Some of the most recent recoveries are coming from the eastern coast of the continent. New York has completed their conservation plan and around the Chesapeake Bay there are now birds where there were none forty years ago. The State of the Virginia also now has over 1,000 nests where there were only 20 pairs in the 1970's.

The future for bald eagles looks much brighter than they did in the last decades. It is great that these birds are making a comeback but they still face threats from human encroachment as well as lead poisoning from animals hunters have shot. They also hit things that move or don't and have had much of their habitat destroyed. These threats are serious but the bald eagle is recovering. There may not be hundreds of thousands of birds on the continent anymore but numbers continue to rise. I am glad that these majestic birds will be around for years to come and remain the national symbol of the United States.

Articles

New York Recovery

Virginia Recovery

Chesapeake Recovery

Florida Eagle Conservation

All About Birds

Pictures

Eagle In Air: Lindsey Broadhead (this is the one we saw)

Eagles on a Log

Eagle Over Water

Wildlife Wednesday: American Green Tree Frog

The past few days I have had a little green visitor to my kitchen window. I believe him to be an American Green Tree Frog. I have, to follow the cliche, named him Kermit. Kermit likes the kitchen window because at night there are always insects flying at it and it creates a buffet for him. Let me tell you about Kermit and his species, the state amphibian of Louisiana, the American Green Tree Frog.

American Green Tree frogs are found in the south-eastern united states with populations stretching from the shores of Virginia to southern Illinois and south to central Texas and southern Florida. They prefer swamps, sloughs, and the edges of ponds and lakes as well as meadows and grasslands near these areas. They look for floating vegetation, grasses, and cattails. You will find them anywhere from trees to the side of homes.

The American Green Tree Frog is a mid sized frog. They are usually bright green with a creamy stripe down their sides. Sometimes individuals will lack these stripes or will be a different hue such as reddish-brown, yellow, or brown depending on their environment, They are a relatively thin frog with long legs and pads on their toes that allow them to climb many surfaces. They have smooth skin that may have spots on the green. Like many amphibians, the females tend to be larger than the males.

The tree frogs make distinct mating calls but use a variety to communicate. They have a special call when they sense it is about to rain. They are more active on warm, muggy nights especially after it has rained.  They eat insects and are often eaten by aquatic birds, snakes, other frogs, and fish.

I enjoy seeing Kermit at night and I hope he keeps coming back. American Green Tree Frogs are a beautiful species that is pretty common in its distribution. I am glad I was able to see him as we do not have them back home.

Articles

American Green Tree Frog

Encyclopedia of Life

Pictures

Frog on Stick

Frog on Log

Frog on Leaf