Menu
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Feature
    • Arts
    • Astrology
    • Business
    • Community
    • Employment
    • Event Stories
    • From the Pioneer
    • Government
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Non Profit News
    • Obituary
    • Public Safety
    • Podcast Interview Articles
    • Pioneer Pulse Podcast: Politics, Palette, and Planet – the Playlist
  • Weather
  • Guest Column
    • Perspectives
    • Don Backman Photos
    • Ardent Gourmet
    • Kitchen Maven
    • I’ve been thinking
    • Jim Heffernan
    • The Littoral Life
    • Neal Lemery
    • View From Here
    • Virginia Carrell Prowell
    • Words of Wisdom
  • Things to do
    • Calendar
    • Tillamook County Parks
    • Tillamook County Hikes
    • Whale Watching
    • Tillamook County Library
    • SOS Community Calendar
  • About
    • Contribute
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Opt-out preferences
  • Post Submission Test
  • Search...
Menu

OREGON DEPT. OF FISH & WILDLIFE: It’s calf and fawn season – keep your distance from elk and deer

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Editor
www.tillamookcountypioneer.net

SALEM, Ore. – Oregon’s deer and elk give birth from May through July. It’s natural for mother animals to leave their young alone and hidden for extended periods of time while they go off to feed, so never assume a young animal is orphaned when you see it alone. The mother will return when it’s safe to do so — when people, pets or predators aren’t around.

Removing an animal from the wild is also a violation of Oregon wildlife laws. (ORS 497.308 – No person shall remove from its natural habitat or acquire and hold in captivity any live wildlife in violation of the wildlife laws.) When people remove them from the wild, young animals miss the chance to learn where to seek cover, what to eat and how to escape from predators and other dangers. The time young animals spend with their parents and in their natural environment is crucial for the development of survival skills long term.

Fawns and calves are most vulnerable to predation in their first few weeks of life when they can’t run with the herd. Their mothers will hide them in brush and go off to forage for food some distance away, sometimes for long periods so as to not call attention to their young. A fawn or calf’s spotted coat helps camouflage them as they stay motionless except when nursing. They also have very little odor as another protection against attracting predators.

Fawns are sometimes mistakenly picked up by humans with good intentions, a problem that almost immediately reduces their chances of survival to zero. The doe has put half a year of intense effort into reproducing and will go to great lengths to find her fawn, often searching the area in a grid pattern. Please, leave fawns where they are.

Elk calf and cow
If you encounter deer or elk, especially with young, give them space and enjoy viewing from a distance. If your presence disturbs wildlife, you’re too close.

Deer and elk see dogs as a threat to their young and may act aggressively in response to disturbance from a dog. Keep pets leashed and away from wildlife. Female elk with young calves have injured and killed pets in Oregon and Washington. It is their instinct to protect their young.

Elk are large wild animals and can be aggressive without warning. Roosevelt elk are the largest elk subspecies in terms of body size, with bulls generally weighing 700-1,100 pounds. Cow elk will aggressively protect their young in the spring and summer. Bull elk become especially aggressive during the fall rut when they challenge other males and will charge anything that comes too close.

Featured Video

Slide Contribute SUBSCRIBE

Tillamook Weather

Tides

Tillamook County Pioneer Podcast Series

Tillamook Church Search

Cloverdale Baptist Church
Nestucca Valley Presbyterian
Tillamook Ecumenical Service

Archives

  • Home
  • EULA Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Opt-out preferences
  • Search...
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on pinterest
Pinterest
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
Linkedin
Catherine

Recent Posts

  • Tsunami 101 Road Show - Everything YOU Need to Know About Tsunami’s and Earthquakes - Manzanita & Tillamook Presentations

    June 1, 2025
  • Nearly 53-foot Sperm Whale Washes Ashore North of Seaside

    June 1, 2025
  • Falcon Cove Beach Domestic Water Supply District Board Meeting Agenda June 7, 2025

    June 1, 2025
©2025 | Theme by SuperbThemes

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}