Each spring, roe deer give birth in the tall grass of Vaud’s meadows. To evade predators, fawns instinctively stay still and scentless in the days after birth, a strategy well suited to natural threats but one that leaves them vulnerable once the mowing season begins.
As mowing equipment has grown faster and covers wider areas with each pass, spotting a motionless fawn in time has become increasingly difficult, affecting an estimated 1’500 fawns across Switzerland every year.
Fondation Sauvetage Faons Vaud is a Swiss foundation that protects newborn fawns from the machinery used during Vaud’s spring hay harvest. It brings together more than 200 volunteer drone pilots, hunters, and farmers across the canton.
Using thermal-camera-equipped drones, its teams locate fawns hidden in the grass before each mowing, a method far more reliable than traditional ground searches.
Since 2019, Dona Bertarelli Philanthropy supports this initiative to help protect Swiss wildlife through practical collaboration between drone pilots and the farming community.
