Maine wildlife biologist Chuck Hulsey spent all day Thursday trying to find a yearling deer in Western Maine that thinks it’s anything but a deer.

“It’s been in captivity, so it doesn’t know how to behave like a deer,” Hulsey said by phone on Thursday afternoon from Strong.

He drove more than 100 miles to retrieve the nuisance, garden-eating machine, but returned empty handed. The deer had hightailed it.

“I spent a lot of time today trying to find it, so its price tag is well over $1,000 now. And this all started with someone picking up a fawn when they shouldn’t have. Does will hide their fawns while they go off and feed nearby,” Hulsey said.

“Leave them there so the adults can find them and lead them to safety,” wildlife biologist Vasco “Buster” Carter said Thursday by phone from Augusta. “It’s human nature wanting to help, but resist that and remember that wild animals are not domestic animals that have been vaccinated.”

Last month in Leeds, a woman decided to raise three cute baby raccoons that her father-in-law found in his barn, according to wildlife rehabilitator Jennifer Lewis of Auburn.

In an e-mail last week to the Sun Journal, Lewis said the woman illegally kept the babies for three to four days as people petted, kissed and held the youngsters. That e-mail and photographs of the raccoons can be found at www.misfitsrehab.com/abbottcostelloandnapolean.htm.

On May 13, she gave babies Abbot, Costello and Napoleon to Misfits Rehab, a non-profit rescue organization in Turner.

“I have a rule of thumb that once an animal gets a name, it becomes a problem,” Hulsey said.

And that’s what happened in the Leeds case.

Because safety precautions weren’t taken and the woman exposed others to the babies, and because a lactating female raccoon was later found dead on the property, fears grew that it was the babies’ mother and may have died of rabies, Lewis said.

“Rabies is a naturally occurring disease that is always out there. Sometimes there are periods where outbreaks are high, and sometimes they are low. But it’s something that animals can potentially pick up. Animals that are social are more likely to have it, like raccoons and skunks, which are in dens together with their young,” Hulsey said.

Rabies is a disease caused by a virus that affects the brain and spinal cord. It’s a disease that only mammals – including humans – can get.

If caught in the early stages, Hulsey said it’s curable, but in the later stages, rabies is fatal.

“That’s why we have to err on the side of caution,” he added.

That’s also why Abbot, Costello and Napoleon had to be euthanized and beheaded. Their heads were sent to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Augusta to be tested.

Lewis said tests on the babies came back negative, but Carter, who was aware of the case, said he believed the dead female raccoon tested positive for rabies.

Spring is when most baby animals and birds are born. It’s also when people find young wildlife in their backyards and back woods. It is illegal in Maine to possess any wild animal without special permits.

“We’ve had six or seven calls this year about orphaned fawns in the wild, but there was only one time that we picked one up, because the mother had been killed on the road that night. In that case, the people did the right thing and called us. Most people are well-intentioned, but if someone picks up a wild animal to raise it, that’s not well-intentioned. That’s a very poor decision,” Hulsey said.

He and Carter strongly advised calling a wildlife biologist when finding a seemingly orphaned young wild animal, rather than taking it.

“We want our rehabbers dealing with injured animals, not ones that people pluck from their families. Little raccoons are cute as a bug, but they make a lousy pet. Raccoons can get several diseases. You can’t take a chance. The department came up with a slogan – “If you care, leave them there” – and 9 times out of 10, that’s what’s the very best for an animal,” Hulsey said.