They already had the fawn in their car when the couple called Chet Powell. He’d know what they should do next.
Powell listened, then repeated the advice he routinely gives people who are guided by good impulse and bad information.
“Turn around,” Powell said, “and take it back.” The fawn, he said, was not abandoned. Its mama would return.
The couple headed back to the Worth County farm where they’d stumbled upon the tiny whitetail earlier that July day. They left the fawn near the spot where they’d found it, close to a towering pine. When they returned to the site later that day, the fawn was gone.
They called Powell with the good news.
It’s the sort of news Powell, executive director of the Georgia Wildlife Rescue Association, wishes he heard more often. With “baby season” — spring — imminent, Powell expects others to contact the nonprofit association asking what to do with fawns, baby rabbits and other young creatures best left alone. Others will seek help dealing with injured birds, reptiles, squirrels and other animals that populate Georgia’s countryside.
To share that knowledge, the association on Feb. 8 is sponsoring “Basic Emergency Care & Procedure for Injured or Orphaned Wildlife.” It will be taught at Southwest Georgia Technical College in Thomasville. The organization already has registered more than 100 participants; seating is limited to 150.
“We’ll begin at 8 a.m. and go like gangbusters all day,” said Powell, an Adel resident and former park manager for the state Department of Natural Resources.
The course will address everything from bear-car collisions to treating sick sea turtles. Experts from the DNR will join other specialists from the Androcles Society, a Thomasville nonprofit that specializes in hurt mammals; the Georgia Sea Turtle Center; and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; among others.
The organization particularly wants to attract volunteers who live along the corridors of I-95 and I-16, as well as residents who live near Augusta, Columbus and Rome. “Those are areas where we don’t have many volunteers,” Powell said.
The class’ $60 enrollment fee includes meals and concludes at 5 p.m. For more information about the course, visit the association’s Facebook page.
To register for the class, visit www.georgiawildliferescue.org.
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