Deer, both here and in Europe, can find their family units with no worries.
QUESTION: Hello from Slovakia, Europe. While walking in the forest with my dog, we met roe does right in front of us. My dog started chasing one doe maybe 50 meters up the hill and then came back to me. Meanwhile, I heard another doe (maybe more), which was left behind and ran away in the opposite direction. My question is: Will they come back? And, if the doe left her young behind, will she comes back for it? I know that roe deer are very tense and stressful animals, and it bothers me that I don’t know what happened after we split them up.
ANSWER: You needn’t worry about having separated the deer. Deer will often, but not always flee in more or less the same direction. In fact, it is believed one function of the tail of our North American white-tailed deer is to make it easier for one fleeing deer to follow another. Regardless, deer occupy a regular home range and will eventually regroup.
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