Mr. Kalejs' Home for Peculiar Peregrines

In this episode, you'll find out what's happening around the state in our Working for Wildlife segment, talk about peregrine falcons with Nik Kalejs, and hear listener questions answered in the mailbag segment. The episode wraps up with a discussion about deer fawns in Michigan, and why they should be left in the wild. Show notes and transcripts are available at http://Michigan.gov/DNRWildtalk.

Questions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

Transcript

Announcer:
You know what that sound means. It's time for the ‎The Michigan DNR's Wildtalk Podcast.

Announcer:
Welcome to ‎The Wildtalk Podcast, where representatives from the DNRs wildlife division chew the fat and shoot the scat about all things habitat, feathers, and fur. With insights, interviews, and your questions answered on the air, you'll get a better picture of what's happening in the world of wildlife here in the great State of Michigan.

Hannah:
Welcome to Wildtalk. I'm Hannah Schauer and hosting with me today is Rachel Leightner. Today, we'll be talking about proposed deregulation changes, fawns, and answering some of your questions from the mailbag.

Rachel:
Later in this episode, we'll be talking with wildlife biologist, Nik Kalejs, about peregrine ducks and their epic story of restoration in the state. You will want to tune in closely to this episode because we will also be revealing how you can win one of our brand new and beautifully designed Wildtalk podcast coffee mugs. If you haven't seen them yet, you need to go check them out. You can see them on our Wildtalk webpage. I promise you won't want to miss your chance at these mugs. But first, let's jump into our wildlife spotlight where we'll tell you a little bit more about the Hooded merganser.

Rachel:
Calm and quiet, wooded ponds, wetlands, lakes, and rivers, Hooded mergansers are diminutive ducks. They measure a little over a foot with a two foot wingspan. The “drake” or the male, Hooded mergansers has a glorious black and white hood on the top of its head, hence its name, which resembles a fancy mohawk. It's dark black and white back combined with chestnut brown sides and a white breast complete the stunning view. The hen or the female Hooded merganser is rich brown overall with a reddish brown hood.

Hannah:
And though these ducks migrate annually, some Hooded mergansers stay in the state year round, especially in the southern part of the state. In the northern parts of Michigan, they can be found from late March to mid November.

Rachel:
I bet those would be neat to check off your birding list.

Hannah:
Definitely.

Rachel:
The Hooded mergansers long, narrow bill is lined with small tooth-like serrations to help it catch and hold prey. They love to eat small fish, caddisflies, and dragonfly larva, snails, amphibians, crayfish, and sometimes acorns.

Hannah:
An additional interesting fact about these ducks. They have an extra eyelid over their eye that helps them see underwater when diving for food. I wish I had an extra set eyelids. No need for goggles.

Rachel:
Why bother blinking?

Hannah:
Exactly. So the male Hooded merganser has one of the oddest vocalizations in the bird world, which is quite alluring to the females. Females give a soft raspy quack.

Rachel:
Hooded mergansers nest in tree cavities that are 15 to 40 feet above the ground or in wood duck nest boxes. The hens lay 10 to 12 eggs at a time, and sometimes the hens will lay their eggs in the nest of other Hooded mergansers hens. Sounds like a two for one arrangement. That must be nice. This leaves one hen with more than her fair share of ducklings to raise. Nests have been documented with up to 44 eggs in them.

Hannah:
So maybe not such a nice arrangement for some of the females anyway.

Rachel:
No, that is one busy mama duck.

Hannah:
Indeed. So these special ducks are delightful to watch, but make sure you approach them cautiously. They are quite shy and they startle easily. Many of the Michigan State game and wildlife areas are home to Hooded mergansers, so good places to check out.

Rachel:
Michigan State game and wildlife areas are free to wildlife watchers and are available for you to visit this summer. Hunting license fees pay for habitat management at these areas. So keep that in mind as you're out and about exploring a state game area and stick around because coming up next is our Working For Wildlife segment.

Announcer:
Pure Michigan Hunt applications are on sale now. If you want your shot of what is considered Michigan's ultimate hunt, pick up a $5 application or two. There's no limit to the number you can buy. If you're one of the three lucky winners, you'll get a hunting prize package worth thousands, as well as licenses for elk, bear, spring and fall turkey, antlerless deer, and first pick at a managed waterfowl area for a reserved hunt. Purchase anywhere hunting licenses are sold or online at michigan.gov/pmh.

Hannah:
All right. So we've been doing a lot of different work for wildlife, but probably one of the most talked about topics right now are some upcoming deer regulation proposals at the Maine Natural Resources Commission meeting a new package of these deer hunting regulations designed to simplify rules and remove some of the barriers to participation was introduced. So they were proposed for the 2020 deer hunting season and are scheduled for a commission vote in June.

Rachel:
The proposed changes, these are going to provide additional opportunities and cost savings for hunter while still offering flexibility in how hunters pursue deer. We use existing and projected data to gauge the impact of these proposed regulations. And right now, the data is showing that the projected changes will not have a significantly negative impact on the deer herd or the quality of Michigan deer hunting.

Hannah:
Yeah, so we're just going to give you a kind of a brief rundown here of some of the proposed regulation changes. Certainly, this is not all inclusive and we're not necessarily going to go into great detail because we have the proposed memo and tons of additional information available online, which we'll mention so you can read more about them and in greater detail. But some highlights and things we wanted to mention. So for statewide proposed regulation changes, one of those would be a change to the Liberty and Independence Hunt qualifiers. There's also some changes being discussed to allow mentored youth and junior license holders and apprentice license holders to be exempt from antler point restrictions in all seasons throughout the state. And under all licenses, there's also some talk of antler point restrictions and how that process is going to work, if we need to require a 60% support threshold from the surveys that we do when a new APR is proposed. And so there are some additional things with antler point restrictions that if that's something of interest to you, definitely check out our writeups on those for additional details on that.

Rachel:
Some additional statewide proposed regulations would also be to limit the antlerless license purchase to 10 permits per hunter. Now this limit offers maximum opportunities for those who wish to manage abundant deer on their property. So it might offer some additional opportunities to some of you.

Rachel:
Another proposal is the requirement of Hunter Orange to be visible on an occupied ground blind.

Rachel:
Also, another statewide proposal would be to standardize bathing practices and eliminate the requirement to use single-bite baits in select counties, like it is currently, during the Liberty and Independence Hunts for hunters with disabilities.

Hannah:
And for the upper peninsula, some proposed changes that are being discussed are to allow upper peninsula archers to resume pursuing antlerless deer in all Deer Management Units with their deer or deer combination license and removing some remanent APRs on the deer license in parts of Deer Management Unit 122.

Rachel:
So moving a little bit farther south below the bridge, starting in the lower peninsula. An addition to the archery season, we would also propose to allow antlerless deer to be taken on deer or deer combination licenses during the firearm and muzzleloading seasons. And that would happen in all of the lower peninsula Deer Management Units.

Rachel:
We also are proposing an open early and late antlerless season in all of these DMUs as well. Additionally, we've proposed changes in antlerless quotas in select Deer Management Units. And we're also proposing to shorten the muzzleloader season in the southern lower peninsula to 10 days and extend the late antlerless season, just to provide consistency between all of the regions of the state. So if you're a traveling hunter and you tend to move between the southwest side of the lower peninsula up to the northeastern, hopefully your regulations will be a little bit more similar no matter where you're hunting out across the state.

Hannah:
Yeah. And continuing on with some other proposed changes for the lower peninsula. There's been discussion to allow legal firearms to be used during the muzzleloader season in the southern lower peninsula. There's also been talk about how to scale carcass movement restrictions to areas most effected by Chronic Wasting Disease to ease some of the movement restrictions in parts of the state with a lower risk of harvesting a CWD positive animal.

Hannah:
We also have been discussing resuming 4 point restriction on the combination license in select your Deer Management Units in the lower peninsula. And talking about continuing the expanded archery season through January 31st for one more year in the Wayne, Oakland, and McComb urban hunt area.

Rachel:
As you've heard, there are a lot of proposals coming forward to the NRC this month. And so if any of these topics seem interesting to you, or you would like to weigh in and give feedback on these proposals, we will include links to the proposal menu and additional information in our show notes. They're also available at Michigan.gov/deer.

Rachel:
If you are a hunter in Michigan or you're invested in any of these natural resources, we hope everyone will take the time to review these proposed regulations and share your feedback with us via email to nrc@michigan.gov by June 5th. So you only have a few days left to do so. If you haven't already provided comments, please be sure to do so.

Hannah:
All right, stick around. Next, we'll be talking with Nik about peregrine falcons.

Announcer:
Did you know that you can take your hunting and fishing regulations with you wherever you go? Have access to the information you need when you need it right on your smartphone. Just visit michigan.gov/dnrdigests to download the applicable hunting digest before you head out to the woods or the Michigan fishing guide before you hit the water. Download the most up-to-date regulations available today at michigan.gov/dnrdigests.

Rachel:
Welcome back to Wildtalk. Today, we have Nik Kalejs joining us to talk about peregrine falcons. Nik, welcome to the show.

Nik:
Well, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Hannah:
Yeah. We're very excited that you're here joining us today. Well, virtually anyway.

Rachel:
So I guess we'll start with our first question. Is it fact or fiction that peregrines can fly up to 200 miles an hour?

Nik:
Yeah. You know, it sort of depends how you define fly. When they're diving or what they call stoops, when they hold up their wings and dive on their prey, they can approach ... They've been clocked at speeds pretty close to 200 miles an hour. So they go faster to dive, but the regular flight, it's not going to be like that. But still, a swift flier, maybe 50-60 miles an hour then.

Hannah:
Wow.

Rachel:
That's amazing. These are going to be neat birds. So I don't mean to back up a little bit. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your time with the DNR Wildlife Division?

Nik:
Well, we got to go back a long ways here now. I actually started with DNR work back around 1980 in a division that doesn't even exist anymore. At that time, we had both the Environmental and the Natural Resources Management divisions together under one department. I worked at DNR Environmental Services, which is kind of where we'd be nowadays, it'd be water quality surveys. So I was a water quality technician for close to a year in Environmental Services before I got laid off.

Nik:
After that, I didn't stay out of the DNR work too long. I got a chance to come back. My degree was in wildlife management, so they offered me a chance to come back as a wildlife tech at Pointe Mouillee. I'm really glad and grateful to do that. So I went to Southeast Michigan on Lake Erie and worked with the legendary Bob Humphreys for a few years and about seven years at Pointe Mouillee and learned a lot. Had an interesting time there, working on a big managed waterfall area. And I did get a chance to get the biologist position in ... I grew up on the westside, so when they offered me a chance to come back to Muskegon, I was a pretty happy to do so and I've been here ever since really as a biologist.

Rachel:
So you're a biologist for Muskegon County, any other counties in the area?

Nik:
Yeah, the three that we've always handled have been Muskegon, Ottawa, and variously, Kent. It's changed a lot over the years. When I started, we handled only the western half of Kent County and we covered southern Newaygo County. But over time, we've variously had to ... Everybody kind of helps out. When staffing's different, you cover different areas. I've covered Osceola County, Newaygo County, even Mecosta County at times. But mostly, it's been Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon.

Rachel:
Well, we've asked you to talk with us today because we've heard you have quite a lot of experience with this unique bird of prey, the peregrine falcons. So these birds have a really interesting history here in Michigan, and there was a time when falcons weren't very common here. Could you give us a little background on why that was?

Nik:
Sure. I mean, probably in Michigan, due to the type of rock formations we had, we probably never had a huge peregrine population, but we did definitely have peregrines nesting in the areas like the Huron Mountains and Isle Royale, Mackinac Island. Up in the North part of the state. Mainly. But in the post World War II timeframe, a lot of things changed. And changed worst for a lot of species like the peregrine. It was a heavy use of insecticides and pesticides like DDT, while they had some positive benefits for insect control and food production, they were disastrous for a lot of the large birds of prey, eagles and peregrine falcons. Basically, they created situations where the egg shells of these birds became so thin that they could no longer viably produce successful hatching of young. So pretty much by mid ‘60s, early ‘70s, there were almost no peregrines East of the Mississippi, that included Michigan.

Hannah:
Thos pesticides sure had an impact.

Nik:
The good news is that lot of things have changed now and kind of to the positive side. I mean, eagles were fairly rare bird to be seen. There weren't that many nesting pairs anywhere in the state, and most of them were up in the UP. Now, we live at a time where it's kind of gratifying. You see Eagles quite often throughout the entire state. That's always a cool thing. And peregrine is too. They've come back with a little help from us restoring the peregrines with those hacking programs that started in the mid ‘80s.

Rachel:
So you mentioned that peregrines were found up in the upper peninsula or Isle Royale in Northern Michigan. And you're a biologist from Southern Michigan, so how did you get involved with this peregrine falcon conservation?

Nik:
Yeah, we're not exactly classic peregrine falcon habitat, I guess you might say. But peregrines have been using manmade structures in Europe and even North America for a long time. In Europe, cathedrals and castles and other tall structures have definitely been used by peregrines for nesting. In the ‘30s, there were peregrines using structures in Montreal and other places on the Eastern seaboard too. So the main thing is for the peregrine, if you can get a tall overlook area that overlooks a [port 00:17:24] or where there's a lot of good feeding opportunities because they are birds that feed on other birds in flight. And so if you that ability to use a manmade structure and create a nesting environment that they find to their liking, they will use it.

Nik:
To go back a little bit, back in the mid ‘80s, it was like ‘86. They started a hacking program in Grand Rapids. They actually took some chicks, falcon chicks that were purchase from captive breeders I think in Canada and they raised them with very little human contact. They were fed on top of McKay Tower in Grand Rapids. And eventually, when they got old enough and they tested their wings and got out on their own, they learned to fly, they learned to hunt and they dispersed. And that's when we started seeing peregrine nesting in Michigan. But oddly enough, none of it ever seemed to come back here to West Michigan where it all started. There were peregrines nesting up north, peregrines on the east side, along the Detroit River, but nothing over here until about the year 2000, we had some really avid birders that worked with us and ended up putting up some artificial nest box structures on some of the power plants here in the west side of the state.

Nik:
And that included areas like the Grand Haven Board of Light & Power and the Campbell plant down in Port Sheldon and eventually, other spots too. And even though those boxes set up, they're vacant for quite a while, eventually it started getting some interest from peregrine falcons. And so right around here, 2000, we saw our first return of nesting falcons on the west side. That was at Grand Haven. And they weren't successful that first year. But the following year, they had chicks on that smokestack at Grand Haven and it's pretty much been all systems forward since then. We've had nesting on a couple of plants that are now decommissioned, like the Grand Haven Board of Light & Power and the [CE 00:19:36] plant in Muskegon, but it's still there at Fort Sheldon. They're using some of the buildings downtown Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. We've seen them spread around and do good things.

Rachel:
Now is your opportunity to win a Wildtalk podcast mug. As a thank you to our dedicated listeners, we will be giving away one of these awesome mugs every episode. To be entered into the drawing this month, test your wildlife knowledge and answer our wildlife quiz question.

Rachel:
This month's question is, what is the small appendage resembling a mini elephant trunk and a wild turkey's beak called?

Hannah:
All you Turkey experts out there, we expect to hear from you. So how can you enter to win this mug? What we want you to do is email your name and your answer to us at dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov. And in the subject line of your email, please put Mug Me, that's M-U-G M-E, Mug Me.

Hannah:
All right. And that will enter you for a chance to win one of these mugs. We'll announce the winners on next month's podcast, so be sure to listen in and see if you've won. And you'll also be able to find out what the next quiz question is for the next round. Now, back to your regularly scheduled podcast.

Rachel:
Just out of curiosity, how do you know when there's a new peregrine nest that's gone up or that you have peregrines in a new area?

Nik:
You know how it is, we're not really free enough to be just cruising around power plants and downtown areas, looking for sightings and peregrine. But birders have a tremendous network of contact and information, the Audubon people and birders in general. So if there's new activity in any area, usually you hear about it through the grapevine that way. And if there's nesting activity, you start seeing the behaviors, the hunting behavior return to spot fidelity to one area, and eventually it kind of filters down and we get the information.

Hannah:
So you mentioned some of the partners like the birders, letting us know when they've spotted some peregrines in a new area, but how about those places where some of these nest boxes are? Of course, we want people to be receptive to having peregrines nesting on buildings, but I imagine that's not always the case. So would you be able to tell us a little bit about some of the partners we have that do have peregrines nesting and then why some places maybe don't want to have peregrines and nesting on them?

Nik:
We have been fortunate to have some really tremendous partners in this whole restoration program. And it started with private people and funds donated, Peregrine Grand Rapids and other places around the state, where we had private groups form to support the reestablishment of the birds. But we've also had great help from some of the big utility companies. Consumers Energy has been great, giving us access to their facilities, mostly smokestacks and so forth. Board of Light and Power, as I said.

Nik:
McKay Tower, where all the hacking started in Grand Rapids was actually the first place. We also banded birds in Grand Rapids. The problem eventually that came there is the building was sold and the new owners really wanted penthouses instead of falcon boxes on top of their building there, so it changed. But overall, we've had tremendous support. People are enthusiastic about giving peregrine reports. Most them find that to be a pretty incredibly cool thing.

Nik:
We've had a few instances where people were kind of happy to have them around, but they really didn't appreciate everything about the peregrine falcons. I remember one downtown bank building in Grand Rapids called up and they were kind of wondering if we could do something about all the bird parts that were showering their [inaudible 00:24:09] and-

Rachel:
I imagine it that [crosstalk 00:24:10].

Hannah:
Yeah. I was going to say, I imagine that would probably be one of the biggest drawbacks to having peregrines on your building is the leftovers.

Nik:
Yeah. They like to leave a few parts here and there when they're awake. So wherever they're perched and feeding in, you'll see some of the residue. I tried to convince them it was a really cool thing that they had peregrines, but they were kind of ambivalent to the idea.

Hannah:
Yeah. Not for everybody, seeing kind of the leftovers there, yeah. So you did bring up banding the peregrine chicks. So is that something ... We hear new stories about it just about every summer I think, about our staff banding the peregrine chicks. And could you tell us a little bit more about why we do the banding and kind of what information that helps us gain?

Nik:
We've really been active with banding the peregrines in West Michigan since about 2001. Looking back at some of the numbers for the sites that we've been dealing with, it surprised me. I hadn't been keeping track of how many, but over the years, it amounts to a lot of little peregrines that have been produced and banded. We didn't band every one, but the ones that I've been involved with, just about 170 banded peregrine falcons. That's been a really cool thing. It gives us so much information about the natural history of this bird. So banding information, the recoveries of these birds gives us opportunity to know things like survivorship, there are difference between males and females, what's the normal situation as far as survivorship of these banded birds. Also, the productivity of their nests and the movement certainly because.

Nik:
The Latin word, if I remember right for peregrine means wander. Reports we've had from some of our chicks have them nesting as far away as Marquette or Toronto, Fort Wayne and even some moved back to West Michigan, so they get around. All the banding information provides a lot of the critical data that we rely on to understand what these birds are doing, how they're going as a species, are we succeeding? Are we reaching some of our goals here or not?

Nik:
The other part of banding is that for one thing, to identify a bird in the hand, but we put two bands on peregrines on the right leg. We usually put the typical fish and wildlife service federal band that is a unique number, but you can't read it from any appreciable distance. Left leg, we'll put a color band, which double color band, usually with a number or a letter combination. And somebody with a nice spotting scope or good set of binoculars can actually hope to read those combinations of letters and numbers, and also get reports as to their library.

Hannah:
Very cool.

Rachel:
I bet that these magnificent birds of prey that can dive close to 200 miles an hour, don't enjoy being banded. And so I would suspect that you have some really interesting stories, maybe about the places you've had to go to get to the birds or maybe how they responded to you trying to band them. Would you care to share?

Nik:
Yeah, for sure. One thing I learned was that ... We like to shoot for an ideal timeframe of around 21 to 25 days. At that age, they're not so fragile that you have to worry about them being handled and they're sturdy enough to be handled quite nicely, but they're not so big and fierce that they'll tear you up when you try to handle them. I got to say there's a lot of times things have not gone ideally as far as the timing. I remember one time, we were banding at the Muskegon power plant and they were doing some maintenance on it. The people that was doing maintenance reported that they had seen eggs on a particular day, babies had just hatched. So I thought, perfect. We're going to know exactly when we're in that right sweet spot to band them.

Nik:
So we did the climb up the smokestack, which in itself was kind of a challenge. That was one of the first years we climbed the smokestack at Muskegon and that's all the climbing really, when you get right down to it. We stepped out onto the ladder there and we do wear ... Situations like that with an open shoot from 600 feet to the bottom, you do use a harness and try to lock in. Usually, we have a device sort of like a ratchet device that held you to a safety line. Theoretically, if you slipped, it would lock you out and stuff. I never tested it, but theoretically, that's what it's supposed to do.

Nik:
Anyway, we got up where the chicks were in. Again, I thought, this was the one year we really know when they hatched and they were way, way older than they were supposed to be. I mean, weeks older than they were supposed to be. So banding them was kind of an exercise and the tolerating pain there for a while there. We did manage to band them, but it didn't go real easily. You have to be gentle with the bird and still get the job done. Most of the time, it goes a lot more routinely than that. You do the climb and you're done with it.

Hannah:
So what's the population look like today. You mentioned these hack boxes did a lot of good to get the birds and higher numbers in different areas across the state. So where are we at now with all those restoration efforts?

Nik:
I'm happy to say we're doing well. I think the original restoration goal in the mid ‘80s, when they started the hacking program was 10 actual nesting pairs in the state. And we've certainly exceeded that we've. We've met our basic recovery goals. Nationally, peregrines are no longer considered an endangered species. They've been down listed to threatened status. So that's a good step forward. Michigan, we're still considering them endangered, but we've come a long way. I think that there'll be a chance to deal with Michigan also pretty soon.

Hannah:
You know what, Nik? We really appreciate all this great information about peregrines and kind of their history here in Michigan. And we're so glad you were able to join us today.

Nik:
Well, it's been my pleasure. It's been a nice change from some of our normal activities these days, and I really enjoyed talking to you about it.

Hannah:
All right, everybody, stick around because the next up we will be answering your questions from the mailbag.

Announcer:
Is it time to renew the license plate on your car or truck? When that moment arrives, show your support for Michigan elk and conservation by getting the wildlife habitat plate at the Secretary of State. 2018 was the 100th year since the reintroduction of elk to the State of Michigan. And while the elk have been here for over a century, this plate is only available for a limited time, so don't miss out. Visit mi.gov/elk and click on the license plate for more information.

Hannah:
Welcome back to Wildtalk. Now, it is time for us to answer some of your questions from our mailbag.

Hannah:
We're going to start out with murder, Murder Hornets. Murder Hornets, specifically. Bernard asked if any Murder Hornets have been found in Michigan yet, and I'm sure that many of you have heard the news about the Murder Hornets. As you may have heard in the news, there's been mention of these Murder Hornets, but the Asian Giant Hornets are unlikely to find their way to Michigan.

Hannah:
If you do think you have seen one of these invasive species of hornets, you can make a report to the Midwest Invasive Species Network. They have an online reporting form, or they have a smartphone app. Our partners, the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development - The Pesticide and Plant Pest Management Division are the lead agency for response to Asian Giant Hornets.

Hannah:
Do please keep in mind if you see a large hornet that our native Cicada Killer Hornets are large and may be mistaken for the Asian Giant Hornet. So while you're unlikely to see one of these invasive species, we will share some more information to the invasive species reporting tools that I mentioned previously, along with a couple of Michigan State University extension articles, one that talks more about the Asian Giant Hornets specifically, and then another article that talks about the Native Cicada Killers that we have here. Again, both those names sound very menacing, but they're nothing for people to be concerned about at this point in time here in Michigan.

Rachel:
I also got a question. I got one from David who had wrote in to ask when the drawing results for the 2020 bear licenses would be announced. He sounds like he's been saving up his points for years. And he is really looking forward to finally getting a shot in a Michigan black bear.

Rachel:
David, the drawing results for bear and elk application periods will be available on July 6th. To learn your fate in the drawing and to see your drawing results, you can check them online on our licensing webpage at michigan.gov/DNRlicenses.

Rachel:
In addition to this, we've also been receiving questions on the status of bear and elk hunting in Michigan. At this point, we are planning for the bear and elk seasons to occur as originally planned. We don't know what executive orders might be in place at the time of these hunts. In the event that bear and elk hunters are not able to get into the field this fall, we will have remedies in place to preserve hunting opportunities for our bear and elk hunters.

Hannah:
All right. And one final question here from our mailbag today. Ryan emailed in, asking when he could get his otter registered. Have the dates changed? He wonders. The 2019 otter registration has been extended for fur harvesters. And so while the governor stay home, stay safe executive order is in place, fur harvesters are encouraged to stay at home. And once the order is lifted and offices are open, you can call to set up an appointment to bring your otter in for registration and sealing at that time. Now, we don't have a new registration deadline set, as it will depend on when the order is lifted. And so we'll keep fur harvesters informed when we get a new deadline that they'll need to have their 2019 otters registered by. But in the meantime, you can find a list of our fur bear registration stations by visiting michigan.gov/trapping.

Rachel:
As we set the segment to a close, remember, if you have questions about wildlife or hunting, you can call 517284-WILD or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov. Your question could be featured on the mailbag.

Rachel:
This is the time of year when there are funds out and about, and you shouldn't be surprised to see them alone. As we've talked about in the past, and it bears repeating, a survival strategy deer use, and many other wildlife for that matter is leaving their young unattended.

Hannah:
Yes. And while to us, this may seem like a strange way to care for a new baby, it is a way for wildlife to keep their baby safe. Fawns, when firstborn would have trouble keeping up with their mother and outrunning would be predators. So their best line of defense is to use their camouflage and lay still to avoid detection. The mother deer leaves the fawn alone so as not to draw attention to her new baby and will return periodically to nurse and check on it. She won't stay long though, so you may not see her stop by. The mother may leave her phone in the same location, or she may move the fawn to a different spot. And when the fawn is big enough to keep up with mom and has a better chance to outrun predators, the fawn will begin to accompany its mother.

Rachel:
Mama deer often will put fawns in areas that are nearby people, such as backyards or neighborhoods. I've even seen a picture this year of a fawn in a garden and right up next to people's homes, near their potted flower planters.

Hannah:
On the back patio.

Rachel:
Really strange places you would never expect to find a fawn. But they're strategically placed there because these are areas less likely to have natural predators in them. Most predators tend to avoid places with a lot of human activity, which makes these places far more appealing to the mother deer for hiding her fawns.

Hannah:
However, this does mean that people are more likely to come across a fawn alone and be concerned for the fawn's survival. The good news is the fawn is just where it needs to be and the mother deer is keeping a close eye on her youngster.

Rachel:
The best thing you can do, if you want to help a fawn is to leave it alone and to keep people and pets away from it. You may not see the mother deer come back to nurse her baby, but rest assured that the fawn is being cared for. The mother deer will likely only come back when she feels it is safe and there isn't much activity. So if you're standing a few feet from the deer throughout most of the day, the mother is easily going to spot you. And most likely won't come back until you leave. So it's best to keep your distance from these fawns. If you or your pets are outside, she is unlikely to visit during this time. So just keep that in mind when you do spot a fawn in your yard.

Hannah:
Yeah, it's best to give them their space and just leave them be.

Rachel:
But it is fine to take a few pictures really quickly because they are tremendously cute. If you do find a fawn that seems distressed or is near dead a doe, you can get in touch with a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Michigan to see if they are able to assist.

Rachel:
Please remember that unless you are a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, it is illegal to possess and take wild animals from the wild. You can find a list of these licensed rehabilitators at Michigan.gov/wildlife.

Hannah:
Above all, a fawns best chance for survival is to be left in the wild where it will be cared for by its mother. Thank you for helping us keep Michigan's wildlife wild and we'll see you next month.

Announcer:
This has been the Wildtalk podcast, your monthly podcast airing the first of each month and offering insights into the world of wildlife across the State of Michigan. You can reach the wildlife division at (517) 284-9453 or DNR-wildlife@michigan.gov.