A male fawn that became separated from its mother was rescued earlier this week by officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, along with field agents from Ministry of the Environment. The officers and field agents were conducting routine patrols in the Pocosol district of San Carlos, near the border with Nicaragua, when they were alerted about the lost juvenile deer by a farm worker.

 

According to Fuerza Publica press release CP-0336-2015, the patrol detail had started their route from the Pital district. As they were driving near San Cristobal, they were approached by a local farm worker who had first spotted the fawn walking around disoriented in a thick forest patch, sniffing around and seemingly looking for its mother. The farm worker was concerned that the juvenile buck would become easy prey for a jaguarundi (eyra cat, similar to a cougar) or a caiman.

 

The fawn was extremely docile, and thus catching it was a simple task for the field agents from the Ministry of the Environment, who contacted colleagues assigned to the park ranger station at the Caño Negro National Wildlife Refuge, in the northern canton of Los Chiles, province of Alajuela. The park rangers arranged a meeting with wildlife rescue experts to supervise the fawn’s development without maternal care until it is ready to be released in a suitable habitat.

 

Protecting wildlife is one of the many tasks handled by Fuerza Publica officers assigned to the protected areas of northern Costa Rica; they often rescue sloths, turtles and caimans, and they are constantly on the lookout fort rustlers, poachers and smugglers of exotic species. A recent wildlife rescue reported by The Costa Rica Star involved a female sloth in Bijagua.