SEQUIM — Jaye Moore has three words of counsel if you find a baby bird or a fawn.
Let it be.
“Don’t assume everything is orphaned or abandoned,” said Moore, the state-licensed director of the Northwest Raptor Center just west of Sequim.
Moore will display some of the birds of prey at the center during Wild Birds Unlimited’s Earth Day celebration in Gardiner on Saturday.
This is the time of year when the center, which Moore has run for better than two decades, receives all kinds of young things — from eaglets to baby chickadees, fawns to coyote pups.
Hikers, beachcombers and people doing spring yard work find the babies and fear they’ve lost their parents. Or they come upon a bird that’s having trouble flying.
“A lot of people will pick up a fledgling and think it’s injured,” Moore said.
“Typically, they’re not real good fliers,” but if left alone and given time to learn, “they will be good to go.”
“People have good intentions,” Moore said.
But in the 25 years she and her husband Gary have been wildlife rehabilitators, they have seen countless cases of animals that should have been left to do what comes naturally.
“A mama deer will leave a little one hidden for up to 12 hours,” Moore said.
She’ll forage for food all day — and return to nurse her fawn.
May is the month for baby deer; elk give birth in June and birds raise their young throughout spring and early summer, Moore said.
“Wildlife mamas do not abandon their young,” she added.
