Deer and Fishers

One morning in Maine

The Random Animal fell off the grid for a while, but will return with fuller reviews in July. Coming soon: more on Water for Elephants and water mammals.
Traveling through Maine, I came across an article about an animal rescue with an interesting twist. Hikers in a nature preserve heard "a blood-curdling scream": a fisher (which looks like a cross between a mink and a badger) was attacking a fawn.

Not as sweet as she looks

The hikers threatened the fisher with sticks, and the predator slunk into the woods but lurked about for some time, so a rescuer called a relative who was a game warden. The fawn, with bites and scratches to the neck, was soon treated at an animal emergency clinic. The hikers felt pleased that they had saved her from suffering. The game warden was more ambivalent. Hearing a childlike scream and seeing an attack is upsetting, and it's wonderful to rescue a vulnerable life. However, as a species, the fisher probably needs more protection than abundant white-tails. "I'd never suggest that people interfere with nature," the game warden noted, though he thought with so many people about stopping the attack was the best tactic--except "that fisher was probably trying to feed her young back at her den. That fawn deer would feed a lot of mouths." Predators from fishers to wolves and cougars are fascinating, but we are conflicted about their taste for the old and sick or young and vulnerable.
The fawn, however, is probably relieved with the outcome. Let's hope she doesn't grow up to encounter the most common predator--the automobile.

courtesy of Tina Crowley