The game warden called about 07:30 this am.

That's unusual for her.

Turns out we had an antelope fawn get tangled up in an abandoned woven-wire fence by the Rec Center yesterday pm.

This is inside town. There's a large expanse of open sagebrush/greasewood country that is surrounded by houses, highways, baseball fields and schools. And a small herd of resident antelope that spend much of their time there, putting up with the kids on bikes and people walking their dogs.

Turns out the town animal control officer got there first, cut the fawn out of the fence, and had it locked up in her truck.

She's a friend, but that was a really dumb move. Now, not only does the fawn smell like blood and people, it also smells like dog.

But she's another "take charge" type of person, who would rather do the wrong thing than have anyone think she's doing nothing.

Even if that's the right thing to do.

So the warden wisely carried the fawn, with badly scraped legs and waist, off away from the people and buildings, and left it in the sage. If mom is still around, it has a slim chance of a life as an antelope.

Otherwise, the choices are:

1) a quick thump to the head with a hammer and a fast end.

2) a likely futile attempt at hand-rearing at the outfit's research center (unlikely to be successful, because the fawn is already stressed, and already probably too old to take to the bottle). And if successful, then a future as a research subject (current main project is testing for transmission of chronic wasting disease ("mad deer disease") from deer to pronghorn). A pleasant but short life.

So, since she's going to be out of town today, the warden called to update me.

And warn me I might get a call.

The call came at 14:30. The fawn has not been taken up by the resident antelope, and is not doing well.

I finish the environmental comments that absolutely, positively had to be sent in today, and thirty minutes later head to town.

The fawn is splayed out on the cool, shady concrete at the door (literally) of one of the schools. Weak, with scours at the back end. Probably dehydrated, but the eartips are not drooping like they normally do with dehydration.

He gives me a bleat of protest as I scoop him up and set him on the floor of the truck. He's panting from the heat, so I put the air on full.

Until that bleat, I had settled on option # 1 above. But if he's strong enough to protest, we'll try a bottle. Call the wife on the cell:

"Do we have any evaporated milk at home?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

So I stop at the store and pick up a can.

Just one can, but all the irritating delays that can happen in a checkout line all happen in my line.

When I get back, in less than 10 minutes, the truck cab is still cool.

But I can tell it is also empty as soon as I get in. There's no one here. Just a little red and white carcass on the floor.

No breathing.

I gently touch that gorgeous, oversized ear.

No twitch, nothing.

I less than gently press my finger against the bare eyeball, the final test.

No response.

Logic says I should drive the one mile out of town and drop the carcass off at the landfill.

But he's not refuse. And I believe in recycling.

About 9 miles out is a nice, tall stand of sage. You could lay a dozen carcasses in it and no one would ever know. And mother nature can recycle them as she sees fit, without hindrance of humans, without annoying phone calls about "poached" critters laying in the field.

He's there now, waiting for the coyotes, foxes, magpies, ants and beetles.

And we have a can of evaporated milk.

Gotta go, just got a call on a fox squirrel with a broken spine.

Option #1.