I don’t take photographs of road kill. It’s too morbid for me. But there is a lot of it. I think it would shock people to know how many animals are killed by vehicles in a single week in Canada. From what I have seen, the number must be staggering. While it is easy to become numb to the dead animals, occasionally, I see something that is very saddening.
Like the deer in the ditch in northern Ontario, just one among many I have seen. What was different about this one is that the tiniest little fawn that wouldn’t have even reached half way up my shin while standing, lay dead in the ditch with her mama. It was obvious the mama died of injuries, but the fawn looked like it had just cuddled up beside her and died of loneliness.
On another morning, later in the walk along the highway in Manitoba, I saw a couple of fawns standing in a field. One came bounding toward me in what appeared to be an enthusiastic manner, as if we were long-lost friends being reunited. I couldn’t account for the behaviour as I reached for my phone to take a photograph. Perhaps it was accustomed to getting food from humans.
But as I raised my phone to take a picture, the fawn stopped, stared at me, then turned and bolted away. “What strange behaviour,” I thought. And then it dawned on me. I had just passed a doe lying dead in the long grass by the side of the road. With me being silhouetted against the sun and being downwind from the fawn, he must have mistaken me for his mama. Poor fella. I was so saddened.
For a little while, the two fawns followed me on a parallel course, perhaps thinking I might lead them to their mama. But when I came to a crossroad, they turned and headed back to where I found them. I worried that they were not old enough to survive on their own until a scientist friend informed me that another female deer would take over the parenting duties. It is the nature of deer, she told me.
