The story of a deer from the Kičevo area named Bambi could have ended in death - but it didn't. The two-month-old fawn, found last week in a field with severe injuries from an illegal trap set for wild boar, survived, and is now recovering in a village in the company of a young goat rescued from slaughter.

She was found by power-grid workers, out in a field, with her legs almost severed and deep, infected wounds. A vet in Kičevo gave her the first antibiotics, and afterwards she was X-rayed and examined in Skopje. Three of her four legs have almost irreversible damage. Even so, the organisation „Animal Rescue Project“ decided that Bambi would not be put down.

„Bambi is not lacking a home, love or veterinary care. What Bambi is lacking is legs,“ the organisation said - a sentence that hurts precisely because it is true. A wild animal suffers enormous stress, which makes the care especially hard. And in the quiet village that is now her home, beside her is a young goat rescued from the knife - the two of them close from the very first moment.

The beautiful side of the story must not paper over the ugly one. Bambi was hurt by a trap someone set on purpose - an illegal device for wild animals that still crops up across the forests and fields. The question this deer raises is bigger than her: who actually protects wild animals here? How many such traps are set out at this very moment, and how many animals that aren't lucky enough to be found by power-grid workers end up alone, in pain, with no one to ever know. Bambi survived - but only because someone happened to walk by.