06/01/2026
On Saturday, we received a call from Suwanee about a fawn trapped in a retention pond.
The area was surrounded by a fence, and the retention pond itself was enclosed by 10-foot concrete walls. Inside there was water, briars, thick overgrown vegetation... and one very scared little fawn with absolutely no way to escape. 💔
We immediately contacted the fire department and put out a call for assistance with our team. One of our incredible Georgia Wildlife Network volunteers, Hailey (and her sweet mama), was the first to respond and head to the scene. Unfortunately, by the time she arrived, the fire department had determined they were unable to assist and had left.
The caller went and picked up a ladder and Hailey climbed into the retention pond to assess the situation.
The fawn was only a few weeks old, but old enough to have developed an instinctual fear of humans or anything approaching it. Fawns can suffer from capture myopathy, a potentially fatal condition caused by extreme stress and exertion. We didn't want to risk chasing the baby, but we also knew that if it remained trapped in the pond with no way out, it had little chance of survival.
So Hailey waited. And waited. For hours.
She slowly inched closer while the fawn darted through the brush, hiding whenever it could. Thankfully, another GWN volunteer, Amy, answered the call and headed to Suwanee. Once on scene, Amy climbed in and helped by positioning herself to gently discourage the fawn from running in the opposite direction.
Five hours after entering that retention pond, Hailey was finally able to safely secure the fawn.
Getting her out was another challenge entirely.
With the fawn safely contained in a crate, Amy and the caller helped maneuver her to the ladder and carefully pull her to safety. After hours of effort, the little fawn was finally out of the retention pond. And so were our volunteers.
According to the caller, the fawn had likely been trapped in the pond for a couple of days. While there had initially been hope that mom was nearby, it was later determined that the sounds being heard were not the doe, and there were no fresh tracks or signs that she had recently been there.
But we wanted to be sure.
The fawn was carried in a crate to a nearby wooded area, and GWN remained on-site for more than an hour, allowing the fawn to call out and giving mom every opportunity to return.
Sadly, she never did.
With heavy hearts, the decision was made to transport the fawn to a licensed rehabber. The retention area was adjacent to businesses, there was no reliable way to continue watching for mom, the fawn had not eaten for at least a couple of days, and if released again, we likely would not have had another opportunity to safely recapture her.
Sometimes wildlife rescue means making difficult decisions with the information available and doing what gives an animal the best chance moving forward.
Thank you to the caller who reached out for help and stayed on-site with us all afternoon.
Thank you to Amy for showing up exactly when she was needed to help Hailey and the fawn.
Thank you to the rehabber who will take it from here.
And thank you to Hailey, who spent FIVE HOURS standing in a retention pond to save this fawn. We may need to budget for bug bite ointment and tick treatments for her & Amy later this week, but we'd say it was worth it. Then again, we're not the ones who are itching. 😅
This weekend was wild. Our GWN team and Georgia's rehabbers showed up for it.
🦌
