Orphaned fawn finds new home

LAKEWOOD RANCH — The moment was bittersweet for Kara and Courtney Akoghlanian.

After nearly a week of caring for a newborn fawn — even waking every three hours during the night to nurse it — the mother and daughter duo bid farewell to their little “Legacy,” named after the road on which he was found.

Wildlife rehabilitator Justin Matthews, of Matthews Wildlife Rescue, picked up the fawn from Kara and Levon Akoghlanian’s Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club home April 12, before having it checked out with a local veterinarian and then transporting it to The Wildlife Center of Venice for further rehabilitation and care until it is released back into the wild.

“It’s a wild animal; it needs to be free,” Kara Akoghlanian said. “It’s just amazing to see him going from not able to stand to (standing). It’s a wonderful experience.”

Kara and Courtney, 14, rescued Legacy April 8. Kara Akoghlanian had just dropped Courtney off at school at Nolan Middle School and was on her way home when she saw two women flagging down cars in the country club, off Legacy Boulevard. Akoghlanian stopped.

When she stopped, Kathy Hazell and Paree Gardner, also country club residents, showed her the emaciated fawn they found hidden at the side of the road. An adult deer had been struck and killed by a car earlier in the week and they believed the fawn was orphaned.

Akoghlanian sped away to fetch a laundry basket from her home and to pick up Courtney, who had worked in a local veterinarian’s office. They returned to pick up the fawn, as well as Hazell and Gardner, who all traveled with the deer to a local veterinarian’s office for assessment. Courtney sat on the floor with the fawn for six hours, administering food and providing other care, before she and her mother took it home.

“I got up to warm the food; that was about it,” Courtney said.

At home, Kara and Courtney Akoghlanian continued their efforts, feeding the fawn a special formula with a dropper every three hours, as it regained strength. They kept it in the garage, away from their pets and other humans, and tried to keep human contact as minimal as possible, to prevent the fawn from becoming too attached to humans. Hazell came to visit several times throughout the week, as well.

Kara Akoghlanian also contacted Matthews, who she’d been referred to by a friend.

“We just wanted to get her (healthy enough) and place her with someone more experienced,” said Kara Akoghlanian, who learned how to bottle feed newborn animals while volunteering with a cat rescue in Massachusetts.

Matthews said the fawn was just more than 1 week old when it was found, and weighed about 4 pounds — below the average birth weight for a fawn.

“It probably had been without food for quite some time, maybe four for five days,” he said. Matthews said The Wildlife Center of Venice has other deer to which Legacy will be introduced, and plenty of land on which he and the other deer can roam until they are ready to be released.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].