In 2010, it was deemed illegal to rehabilitate injured deer in Ohio, including little fawns. Since then, many people have experienced issues because of this. Deer are hit every day because of cars, so many are wounded or killed. But sadly, it is illegal to help these animals, even with a rehabilitation license. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where humans have lost their morals and made it illegal to assist one of the most common animals that they hit with their car.

On August 12th, 2021, I came across a whitetail deer fawn. While my original intention was to just see this animal, I soon found out that this fawn was covered in maggots all over. Flies were flying all over her, as these maggots rubbed her skin raw. Seeing that she was obviously malnourished, my brother and I transported her up to our house, putting her into our fenced in courtyard so I could clean her up. My grandmother came to assist me, and we tried everything we could. We combed out thousands of maggots, and put a towel over her back to give her a sense of safety. She would cry for us when we left her, and she would lean into our hands when we rubbed her ears.

I called about ten numbers, and none of them were legally allowed to help deer. We called a deputy who’s job is managing the department of wildlife in our county- and she suggested that the only thing we could do was shoot her, and double bag her and put her on the side of the road.

We had to transfer her into a dog kennel as we had to go get a plastic pool so we could watch her. Unfortunately, we saw that she had a horribly mangled back leg. I broke into tears at the realization that legally, we could do nothing, and the only thing we could do to help her was to put her down.

No one could humanely euthanize her, so our last resort was calling the sheriffs office. We made her as comfortable as we could, making her a bed of blankets and offering her every treat we could.

When the deputy arrived, we had to move her to a better location. When I was moving her, all I can remember is the blood curdling sounds she made. The bleating was horrendous and echoed throughout our woods. The deputy was in tears as he had to dispatch this poor fawn, no older than three months old and still had her spots.

As we had a closer look at her after, we quickly came to notice how her hip was probably destroyed- most likely a car accident. Yet no one could help her because of the law.