Each year, dozens of students arrive at the Wildlife Center to receive hands-on training in the fields of wildlife rehabilitation and medicine. In addition to their training, rehabilitation students must also complete a project during their externship. Simon, one of the rehab externs, chose to design a scent-based enrichment project for the Center's White-tailed Deer fawns.
White-tailed Deer, like other members of the cervid family, rely heavily on smell not only to locate food and detect predators, but also to communicate with one another—especially during the rut, or mating season. This complex language of pheromones and glandular secretions is etched into the environment through behaviors like “rubbing” and “scraping.”
If you’ve ever walked through the woods in fall and noticed bark stripped off saplings or patches of raw earth scratched clean beneath overhanging branches, you’ve likely seen this communication in action. Bucks create these rubs and scrapes using their antlers and hooves, leaving behind scent markers that convey critical information such as who’s nearby and whether a doe may be ready to mate.
White-tailed Deer use specialized glands, including apocrine sweat glands on their foreheads and preorbital glands near their eyes, to deposit these distinct chemical signals. To us, scent-marking might look like nothing more than routine animal behavior, but for deer, it’s an important form of communication essential to both survival and reproduction.
So, why does any of this matter for the orphaned fawns at the Wildlife Center?
Young deer raised in captivity don’t have mothers to show them these natural behaviors. They miss learning those subtle but critical lessons that can help them thrive in the wild. As fall approaches and the Center's 2025 fawn patients get closer to release, rehab extern Simon came up with a project to bridge that gap and expose the fawns to these behaviors.
In July, Simon launched a scent-based enrichment project in the Center's deer yards to introduce the fawns to the basics of rub and scrape communication. He used naturally fallen tree snags from the nearby forest to create mock rubs, peeling away bark and placing them throughout the enclosure. To simulate real conditions without triggering competitive breeding behavior, he applied non-estrous doe urine to the rubs.
Simon hopes that the fawns will learn to recognize these scent posts in the wild, understand that other deer are nearby, and begin to read their chemical “messages."
“In the absence of their mother, it becomes our responsibility to provide experiences that mimic the natural world as closely as possible,” said Simon. “By exposing them to the fawns to behaviors now, we give them a better shot at understanding their environment, and ultimately, thriving when they return to the wild this fall.”
So far, the project has been a big success! Simon has monitored the fawns via cam, and has captured numerous photos and videos of each individual investigating the scents. Check out one of the recent videos!
Simon's project will not only help this year's fawns, but can be used for future fawn groups as well, providing staff with another tool to give the best possible care to patients.