Four years ago, Cedric Petit founded a wildlife rescue group called "Saving Bambi." The organization has a simple mission: rescue small animals from the "grisly" fate of accidentally getting caught in the blades of farmers' machinery.
Petit grew up in a family of farmers, according to an Agence France-Presse report shared by Phys.org. He was inspired by rescue efforts happening in Germany and Switzerland, where entire networks of volunteers saved thousands of animals a year over large areas of farmland.
Across farms in their home of Belgium, Petit and his fellow volunteers fly drones using heat-sensitive cameras to spot small animals hiding in the fields. The group is regularly called in right before a harvest.
As the report explains, baby animals such as roe deer fawns are often placed in the farmers' fields by their unsuspecting mothers, but the babies are left completely vulnerable to the blades of large mowers.
Once an at-risk animal is spotted on the drone cameras, Petit and other group members carefully put the animal on a crate covered in hay and place it into the safety of nearby woods where the mother can find it.
"Because of unpredictable weather linked to climate change, crops are growing all year round, and harvesting is coming earlier and earlier, including between late April and late June, which is the birthing period for fawns," said Petit.
The group's work keeps farmers from the unpleasant discovery of baby animal remains in the blades of their mowers, and they're doing a service for livestock. In the past, farm animals feeding from a bale of hay contaminated by an animal carcass could get botulism poisoning.
"Saving Bambi" has 80 drone pilots who freely offer their time, working around their regular day jobs to save wildlife. They work across Belgium and Luxembourg, and last year, they rescued 834 fawns. That's already a lot of growth from 353 fawns the year before, per Phys.org.
"Accidents are happening more and more often — that's why we're here," said Petit.
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