In the spring of 2023, Jeff Letendre of Montreal, Canada, came across an orphaned fawn whom he named Fairy. And it was just the beginning of an amazing real-life fairy tale that’s still unfolding today.
“She’s my little fairy from the forest,” Letendre, 45, told The Epoch Times. “It’s magical. You have no idea ... being close to such a wild, magnificent animal, how magical it is. I’m very blessed.”
Letendre, who runs a tech business called Virtual Front Desk, says Fairy the deer is almost an adult now. She is a free spirit and comes and goes as she wants, but she still regularly visits him.
Recalling their first meeting, Letendre says it began with tragedy. He was having a conversation on the phone with his friend. “I was outside, and all of a sudden, I saw this fawn coming out of the bush,” he said.
At first, Letendre was sure the fawn’s mother must be nearby. But after searching, he couldn’t find her and then remembered seeing a deer hit by a car on a nearby road.
It dawned on him that the fawn had lost its mother.
At this point, Letendre took matters into his own hands, with the goal not of making the fawn his pet but of nurturing it and helping it grow to independence, so it could live freely in nature.
“I attached a bottle of milk with something for the baby [deer] to suck on, on the bird feeder,” he said. “And I left it there, but, you know, these animals, they have a very good [sense of] smell.”
Watch Fairy drinking milk from a bottle tied to a bird feeder:
After taking care of Fairy for several months, Letendre found a new mother and herd for her, but the adult doe initially rejected Fairy. Despite this, Letendre persisted and in the end, Fairy’s new herd came around.
“They realized they were getting a snack whenever she was there,” he said. “So eventually they accepted her, and she joined them for the entire winter.”
As Fairy grew, Letendre continued to feed her and keep her safe, but he never tried to domesticated her. “I never brought her inside,” he said. “She was always free to roam on the land. I was hoping she would sleep near the house, and she actually did.”
Letendre says he loves and “always respects” his little Fairy.
“Even when I brush her, when I pet her, when I give her a kiss ... I never, never try to push anything on her,” he said. “So, whenever she sees me, she runs towards me. She loves me just because she feels comfortable and secure, and she knows that I respect her [boundaries], and her freedom is my number one priority with her.”
Watch Fairy and Letendre spending time together:
Helping Fairy wasn’t Letendre’s first foray into helping the wildlife around him. He has also rehabilitated raccoons—and taking care of these animals has given him a new perspective on nature.
“I think, like most animals, if you just listen to them, and you don’t try to push, you don’t try to take their freedom away, they just feel like they can be around you,” he said.
He says that if you do this, “Naturally, they will stick to you.”
Letendre’s experiences talking and communicating with animals have led him to believe they are sentient beings.
“If you have a cat or a dog, you'd realize that you kind of can have a conversation with your dog with intention; they normally react to it,” Letendre said. “[T]hey seem to understand the emotion that you’re trying to convey to them.”
He says that this has been the case with Fairy.
Fast forward to now, Letendre still sees Fairy, even though she lives independently from him. And recently, he said, Fairy has even brought other deer friends with her. Letendre is hoping that when she comes around after the upcoming winter, she might be a mother herself, bringing him a lot of satisfaction.
For anyone who has found an injured or orphaned animal and wants to help it, Letendre says giving it to the local authorities isn’t always the best option. But he also acknowledges that not everyone will have the experience or resources that he has because he’s been helping animals for some time.
“I would call a rehabber and ask online for guidance because that’s in the best interest of the animals if you don’t know how to deal with them,” he said.
