Lucknow: In UP’s wildlife regions, conservationists face tough challenges like hand-rearing young animals without diminishing their natural survival instincts. Such is the case with a chital fawn in Kishenpur Wildlife Sanctuary which is not even one month old. The forest staff found it moving in the close vicinity of the forest campus. “Every time that we guided it back to the forest, it would come back,” said range officer at Kishenpur Ayub Khan who is hand-rearing the fawn.The staff made efforts to locate the mother, but it did not help. The mother also never came looking for it, which made everyone presume that it may have been killed in a tiger attack. Kishenpur, being the core of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, has a high tiger density. The fawn came close to men, probably to seek protection. Under this assumption, efforts were made to let some females take to it as a mother. “But deer do not show such sentiments like primates or elephants. After which it was rescued by our staff and is being looked after,” said director, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, Raja Mohan.Khan sheltered it in his quarter, where it is fed goat milk with a bottle. However, to keep its wild instinct preserved, it is let out in the evening to move around the campus.The officials decided not to send it to the zoos, but to release it in the wild once it comes on its own. “We will try to integrate it with some herd of deer where it can live like it should,” the director added.
