New! Fawn Survival Study

Why another fawn survival study and what will we learn? A good question.

Back in 2000 and 2001, we found fawn survival was lower in the Big Woods and coyotes and bears were tied as top predators. About 50% survived to the hunting season. Has that changed? Some people would like to know.

What am I looking forward to with this study? Almost 15 years after the first fawn study the technology is now available that will allow us to discover new things about deer.

First, we will fit adult females with the same GPS radio-collars we are already using – but with an added feature. A special transmitter will tell us when she gives birth and where the birthing bed is located. Basically, we will get an email when the fawn (or fawns) arrive into the world! We’ll share more details about this technology during the upcoming deer trapping season (to begin in mid-January).

The plan is to find the birth site and the fawns.  What is the habitat around the birth site? How far and how fast do fawns move from the birth site? How do these factors influence survival? We couldn’t even think of asking those questions 15 years ago.

Second, when we find a fawn it will be fitted with a radio-collar and this fawn collar will communicate with the female’s GPS radio-collar. Whenever the mother is within 30 meters of the fawn it will let us know. That means we can study mother-fawn interactions. How much time do mothers spend with the fawn and how does that change over time? If the fawn dies what does the mother do? And maybe we’ll find out exactly at what age fawns start traveling with the mother.

Fifteen years ago we could only ‘collar and foller’ fawns. Now we hope to follow both the mother and the fawn. Do fawns from more experienced does survive better? Lots of questions to start thinking about asking…

We’ll be sharing some of those answers here.

-Duane Diefenbach

 

Want to Learn More?

Here is a link to the findings from the original fawn study  (or go to Publications to download the full version) conducted in 2000 and 2001.

When should fawn predation trigger management changes? We developed a decision chart for how the PGC can use biological data to determine how to adjust harvest regulations if fewer fawns recruit into the population.

And are coyotes really causing a population decline in deer? We reviewed fawn and doe survival and reproductive rates across eastern North America. Our results indicate increased fawn mortality from coyotes can be addressed through reduced harvest of adult female deer – but only rarely would doe season have to be closed.

How will coyote population reduction efforts increase fawn survival? In South Carolina fawn survival rates were as low as 25%. Coyote removal and habitat management was not effective in recruiting more fawns into the population.

 

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One Square Mile

I’ve heard it many times that an average buck’s home range is about 1 square mile in size. And I’ve said it myself, because it’s basically true. But I rarely get asked about female deer.

If you have been following this blog, however, you know that some bucks can have really small home ranges in September. And once the rut begins those same deer can really travel.

So what is the difference in home range size between buck and doe, and how does that change over the months? Here I summarize some of our data and show you average home range size, for buck and doe. Also, we look to see if home range size during just the day differs much from all locations.

September and October

The rut gets going in mid-October so you would expect the home range of bucks to increase between those two months. And you would be right.

What’s interesting is that from September to October the average buck home range increases 55% in area. From almost 400 acres to just under a square mile (1 sq. mile = 640 acres). How about that? That square mile rule-of-thumb is right on!

But female home ranges actually shrink from 400 acres to under 200 acres. A 48% decline in area.

There’s little difference between daytime and all locations.

Deer-Forest Study

November

The rut makes November a different story. Buck home ranges explode and are nearly three times larger and average almost 3 square miles in size (3 sq. miles = 1,920 acres)! And 3 square miles is the average – one of our male had a home range of 4 square miles! So much for that 1-square-mile rule of thumb.

And female home ranges increase to an average of 255 acres.

Think about this. That buck with a 4-square-mile home range encompassed the equivalent home ranges of more than 10 females. I’d say he had good breeding potential!

For both buck and doe their home range is slightly larger in the daytime than nighttime, but not by much.

Deer-Forest Study

December

It’s not the rut anymore. Home ranges are right back where they were in September and October. Males are about 1 square mile and females are about 200 acres.

If you read our posts about movements during the rifle season for females or males, you might expect the average daytime home range to be smaller. It is for males, but I can’t explain the slight increase for females.

Deer-Forest Study

The Deer Rifle Season

This is where it gets interesting. Of course, the rifle season is only 2 weeks long so you would expect the home range to be smaller just because it’s only a partial month.

But home ranges are half their size – they shrink 60% for males and 48% for females.

And look at this – both buck and doe home ranges shrink to about 100 acres during daytime (the two points don’t even separate on the graph because they’re almost identical)! Of course, if you watched the movies from the rifle season in our previous posts this makes perfect sense.

Deer-Forest Study

Rule of Thumb?

Before you leave thinking a square mile for a buck (except in the rut) is a good rule of thumb, let me warn you!  The deer we are studying all live in large tracts of contiguous forest and they are quite different from other parts of the state. We’ll show you how different (and explain why) in an upcoming post.

-Duane Diefenbach

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Super Smart Bucks

All the radio-collared deer in this study were captured as 1.5-year-olds or older, so by the 2013 hunting season they were all at least 2.5 years old and already survived two or more hunting seasons.

If you watched Hillside Doe during the rifle season, you know deer that survive two hunting seasons have a much better chance of surviving a third. It’s because they found a place they can hide from hunters.

Bucks do the same thing as doe – find a hiding place – but I think they are even more cunning.

We first show you the hiding place of Deer 8917 in a movie. We’ll then follow it up with the hiding places of two other bucks. I think you’ll see the pattern.

Ok, so let’s start with the movements of Deer 8917 for the whole rifle season. We shared with you his moves on the last day of rifle season in a previous post. In that post, Chris Rosenberry, Deer and Elk Section Leader for the PA Game Commission, pointed out that a lot of bucks make afternoon movements. And some of them are quite audacious – if totally unpredictable. But these bucks are also cunning in how they lay low. Watch the video (I highlighted his hiding area in blue).

Now for two other hiding places of bucks during deer season. What do you notice?

Buck 8159 Hiding Place
Deer-Forest Study

That’s right, these bucks find what I call “vantage points.” Places where the prevailing wind comes from the west – nothing is going to sneak up on them from that direction. And to the east? A steep slope where they can make a quick getaway – or definitely see or hear some hunter struggling up the slope!

The thing is about these hiding spots is that even if you knew where these bucks were, how do you sneak up on them?  The bucks are often in place before dawn so they will hear you coming in the dark. And in less than 30 seconds they can be hundreds of feet downslope from you.

The one question we can’t answer (yet!) is what is the habitat at these vantage points? Is it open woods or thick laurel? Does the downslope have a clear view or is it dense vegetation? This is something we’ll be investigating and hopefully provide an answer to another piece of the puzzle about how these bucks survive. You’ll find the answer here in a future post (just can’t promise when).

Anyway, I told you they were cunning!

-Duane Diefenbach

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2014 Deer Hunger Games

The date is set every year – when the sun rises on the Monday after Thanksgiving, the chase begins. An army of deer hunters enters Penn’s woods. 

While these games are deadly, there are many winners. And when the dust finally settles after those 2 weeks, many deer tributes still stand – outwitting and outlasting the army of hunters. But what are the odds a doe, fawn, or buck will succeed? Or for that matter, how long do hunters last? How long will they roam the woods in the hopes of outsmarting a deer tribute?

In the beginning, the drive is strong in hunters. If you hunted the rifle season every possible day, you’d have 12 days to chase those elusive deer tributes. But the average rifle hunter chases for only 4 or 5 days.

In 2013 about 762,000 hunters entered the woods. They took 352,920 deer (134,280 antlered and 218,640 antlerless). About 1 in 6 hunters brought home a buck and about 1 in 3 at least one deer.

What’s the playing field look like for deer?  All of Pennsylvania is in play, so where you live makes a difference. If a deer hails from “District” 2G and is female, the odds are on her side. Eighty-eight percent of females will survive their first round as fawns. And 83% will make it through their second. After this, each year 89% of females will survive the hunting season. These girls know how to outsmart the army. They have to – it’s life or death. 

Almost 29% of the adult females in 2G are 6.5 years old or older. 

The odds aren’t quite as good if you are a male. Less than 9% of males in 2G are 6.5 years old or older. If you are sporting antlers on your head, everything changes. 

Only 69% of males survive their second encounter with the army (which would be their first with antlers). When the next season arrives, 30% are harvested. 

But those odds for a buck in 2G are still pretty good when you consider the survival of deer from “District” 2D

Deer from 2D have an uphill battle. Only 78% of them (male or female) will survive their first season as fawns. Only 68% of females survive their second; while only 15% of males survive to experience their third hunting season! Less than 2% of males in “District” 2D are 5.5 years old or older!

It is obvious what district you want to be from if you are a deer that wants to stay alive in Pennsylvania. In fact, we recently found the Katniss Everdeen of the deer world. Our first meeting with our heroine was in 2001 when we tagged her as a cute yet clever 8.6-lb fawn in the Quehanna Wild Area in “District” 2G. We hadn’t seen or heard from her since 2002.

But last month she reappeared – her photo snapped on a trail camera. 

Ms. Everdeen is now 13.5 years old living in the same area where we first met her. Her odds of surviving to this age? About 1 in 100. If we were ever to crown a victor of the Deer Hunger Games, she would be it.

-Jeannine Fleegle

Deer and Elk Section Biologist

Postscript

How do we know all this about deer in Pennsylvania? For more than a decade we have captured and fitted thousands of deer with radio-collars and monitored their fates. Add to that the thousands of hunter-killed deer that are field-checked each year by PA Game Commission staff and we get a pretty good picture.  From these harvest and survival rate data, the age structure of the population in each wildlife management unit can be reconstructed. The rarity of coming across a deer that has survived 13.5 years simply confirms the accuracy of the conclusions we make from these data.

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This Doe Knows…

Since we began getting data from GPS collars, there are two things we have learned about deer movements during the rifle season that have amazed me. First, deer respond to hunting pressure the day before the season opens (and not before). Second, their ability to hide somewhere in their home range during hunting hours is amazing.

These two behaviors are exemplified in female 8921 – we call her Hillside Doe because (drum roll….) her home range is on the side of a hill!

So let’s see what she does during bear season in 2013. First, it can be either middle of the day or middle of the night and she is usually found close to the road. In fact, most of her time is spent within a few hundred yards of the road. 

Second, whatever activity that occurred during bear season, or Thanksgiving, or the Saturday before rifle season had little effect on her movements. At least as far as I can tell.

But watch what happens beginning the Sunday before the Monday opener! You’d think someone must have texted her a message deer season was about to get started!

Hillside Doe has a go-to spot – one of the steepest areas on the side of her hill. I marked this area with a light blue circle.

Watch the video and just imagine…

It’s Sunday before the opener. Many hunters are scouting out their hunting spot. Hillside Doe does the same and checks out her go-to spot at 5 in the morning. Her safe place, so to speak.

By lunchtime it doesn’t appear any hunter has found her safe place so she heads back down to the road. Maybe she’s checking out the competition?!

Now it’s midnight on opening day. She’s right next to the road intersection. By 3am she’s once again in her safe place!

By 7am most hunters have settled into their spot for the morning stand. Hillside Doe is already in her safe place and she stays there until lunch. By dusk she’s back down at the road intersection. 

Watch her repeat this pattern Tuesday-Friday. She doesn’t always go back to the exact same spot, but pretty close.

But the first Saturday is different! By 7am she’s in her safe place and she does not leave that area for over 24 hours. Not until Sunday afternoon does she venture back down to the road!

Come Monday morning, however, it’s back to the same routine. Head to her safe place (or nearby) for the morning and then in the afternoon head back down towards the road. And wander among the camps all night long!

And that’s the rest of her rifle season. Except maybe a deer drive went through on the second Thursday (December 12)? Watch her very different behavior on that day starting about 8:30am!

Despite all the excitement, she survived deer season. I think you’ll agree, this doe knows deer hunters!

 -Duane Diefenbach

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Crazy, Crazy, Crazy!!

The rut is the most physically demanding time of year for males. They seem to be active 24 hours a day 7 days a week and have no detectable pattern to their movements – except to cover as much territory as possible in as short a time as possible.

If you read our posts about when the rut peaks each year and the timing of breeding, you know now that the rut gets started the last week in October.

And if you watched some of the October videos of buck movements you watched them expanded their home range in the latter half of that month.

So you’d be right to guess that in November they may get a little crazier, but the October home range pretty much shows you their home range in November – with a few exceptions!

In the videos below, you can see how they travel compared to their October home range. I hope you enjoy watching them bounce around like ping-pong balls!

Big Buck Mojo

We showed you Deer 8159’s movements in September and October and saw how he shifted his home range further up on the ridge. He travels even further and faster across his home range (and beyond) this month.

Travelin’ Man

Deer 8103 suddenly took off in late October and about quadrupled his home range area. It expands even more in November as he continues to chase females.

But watch what happens on the 17th of November – right at the peak of the rut.

On the 17th of November he returns to that knoll on the southeastern corner of his home range. He died of unknown causes sometime on the 22nd of the month.

Was he fatally injured and simply returned to his favorite area of his home range? Or was he exhausted from the breeding season and succumbed to disease or predation? We’ll never know.

The Less Predictable Buck

This deer was always in the same area in September and October. But check out his move on November 10th – almost 5 miles in 6 hrs! Overall he did not expand his home range very much, but I think you’d be hard pressed to pattern him in November compared to October.

Insanity!

Deer 8909 shifted his home range to the west in October. He takes it to a new level in November! Watch as he crisscrosses his home range all month long. This deer never stops.

Check out November 3rd when he was about a mile beyond the northwestern edge of his October home range and within 24 hours was down in the southeastern edge of his home range.

On November 24th he did a complete loop around his home range in less than 24 hours! I suspect the few times he spends more than 6 hours in the same area was probably when he was with a doe.

If you find these movements interesting, wait until we share with you how deer travel during the rifle season. You will see how these deer survive and what types of smart (and audacious) moves they make during the rifle season.

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Why 2 Weeks Later?

Timing of the rut in Pennsylvania is driven by changes in daylength. We already showed you the timing does not vary much from year to year.

But fawns, on average, breed about 2 weeks later than adult females. Why?

The hormone melatonin is produced by the pineal gland (a small gland located near the brain) during periods of darkness. As the days get shorter in autumn more melatonin is produced. Once melatonin concentrations reach a critical level, the onset of estrus is triggered (through another complicated set of hormones) and females become receptive to males for mating.

If females are not bred when they they first come into estrus, then they will cycle and 21-30 days later they get a second chance. Or a third chance 42-60 days later. And so on.

The graph below shows when breeding occurs in Pennsylvania by weekly intervals. The dates on the horizontal axis represent mid-week. 

Notice that by the last week in October only about 20% of females have been bred – and more than 10% were bred in the last week alone. That would explain the increased home range size of males we observed in late October.

But suddenly in the first two weeks of November over 40% of females were bred. By the end of November over 85% of females have been bred.

histogram of births by date showing a normal distribution peaked at Nov 13

What we see is a rapid onset of breeding in late October. But notice how breeding trails off into December, January, and all the way into March. Why?

It turns out there are two reasons. First, as I already mentioned, if a doe does not get bred the first time she may cycle and breed 21-30, 42-60, … days later.

The other reason is because of fawns. A fawn has to balance energy needs of growth with the demands of producing offspring – a fawn is only going to breed if she has enough body mass and fat reserves. Some fawns may reach that critical size, but the result is they breed later than adults.

Check out this graph where we identify the percentage of does breeding by age.

Notice that most fawns are bred in late November and December. By December most of the breeding consists of fawns.

But overall, relatively few fawns breed at all.

In fact, in northern Pennsylvania (north of Interstate 80), almost no fawns get pregnant. For 1999-2006 the PA Game Commission checked over 3,500 road-killed females and a total of 50 pregnant fawns were discovered in Wildlife Management Units 1B, 2F, 2H, 2G, 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D. Over half of those 50 came from Wildlife Management Unit 1B (an area with productive Great Lakes soils). 

Over the 8-year period, no pregnant fawns were ever found in units 2H and 2G, which has some of the poorest deer habitat in Pennsylvania.

So is the fawn in the photo pregnant? Probably not. But if she is, you know she was probably bred in late November or December.

Our next post will share some videos of deer movements of bucks during the peak of the rut. And now that you know something about the rut in Pennsylvania, what you will see will make a lot more sense. Stay tuned!

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How to Predict the Rut

I love picking up the deer magazines at the barber shop come September and October to read about the rut. So much to learn about the upcoming season! 

First, there are regional appraisals about what will happen with the rut around the country and when. 

Then there are the experts who can tell you how the moon phase will affect rut behavior. 

But just what is the rut and when does it occur in Pennsylvania? Turns out we’ve got the data to let you in on a little secret!

The rut is when bucks go crazy trying to breed. A single buck can breed several doe, so all the more reason for them to go crazy! Bucks need to first find a doe who is ready to be bred – the reason why they run (literally!) all over the place during the rut – and then defend that receptive female from other males. 

It’s the only time of year that deer are territorial, but it’s not about defending some piece of land. It’s about excluding other males from breeding with a receptive female! A different type of territorial behavior for sure – the “territory” (the female) just happens to move around – but territorial behavior nonetheless.

Because the rut is about breeding, we can determine when the rut occurs by determining when fawns are born. The way we do this is to check road-killed does for embryos in late winter and early spring. If they are pregnant we can measure the length of the fetus and estimate the date the doe was bred. During 1999-2006, the PA Game Commission checked 3,507 road-killed does with fetuses.

But we might want some additional information.

During 1999-2006, here’s when the full moon occurred.

Year Full Moon
 1999   23 Nov
 2000  11 Nov
 2001  01 Nov
 2002  20 Nov
 2003  09 Nov
 2004  26 Nov
 2005  16 Nov
 2006  05 Nov

But first, a definition. A median date is where half the dates are below the median value and the other half are above it. The median is similar to the mean, but less influenced by a few extremely large or small outlier data points.

The median date of the full moon was 13-14 Nov during 1999-2006.

The variation about this date averaged +/- 9 days.  So that variation in the date of the full moon has the potential to change the timing of the rut from one year to the next!

Now what was the median date of conception during those years?

Year Adults Fawns
 1999  11 Nov  30 Nov
 2000  15 Nov  24 Nov
 2001  10 Nov  28 Nov
 2002  16 Nov  26 Nov
 2003  14 Nov  17 Nov
 2004  12 Nov  23 Nov
 2005  09 Nov  22 Nov
 2006  14 Nov  26 Nov

Across all years, the median date of conception for adult does was 13 November (based on 190-436 doe checked/year).  

Wow! The median date of the full moon is the same as the median date of conception for adult does. There must be a connection!

For fawns, it was similar but sample sizes are smaller (17-87 doe checked/year). The median date of conception across all years was 25 November. Hmm… 2 weeks later?

Now all we need to do is correlate the date of the full moon with the median date of conception and figure out how to plan for the rut each year! Check out the graph below.

graph of rut

But wait a minute! No matter the date of the full moon the median date of the rut simply bounced around 13 November for adults and 25 November for fawns.  There is no relationship between the rut and the moon.

Turns out, that’s the secret!!!

The rut really doesn’t vary that much from year to year.  The secret is you can plan your hunting vacation around the rut months ahead of time and not even worry about the moon!

But why does the rut peak for fawn females about 2 weeks later than adults? We’ll discuss that in an upcoming post real soon but it has little influence on the timing of the rut (compared to adults there are relatively few fawns that breed). Combining adult and fawn data the median date of the rut is only 1 day later – 14 November.

Soon we’ll be sharing deer movements of males during the rut. So we’ll first have to show you the variation in breeding dates of females (it doesn’t all occur on the median date!). 

Please check back for updates or sign up for email notices of new posts.

-Duane Diefenbach

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Did You Predict the Shift Correctly?

We shared with you this deer’s movements in September and mentioned that his home range might shift as crops were harvested in the valley.

But if he spent more time on the ridge would he travel further up the gap in the ridge into the valley to the north? Or simply shift to the west. The image of home range boundaries tells it all, but the movie shows more.

What I found fascinating is that this deer clearly has a “central place.” That is, no matter his movements he always returns to this center of attraction in the southeast corner of his home range.

In some of the other deer we have followed, come late October they had no pattern or they were perfectly predictable. I’d say this deer is in-between.

Come about the 16th of October he begins to take treks to the west and north. But he always seems to come back to that southeast corner.

His movements the latter half of October just about double his home range area, but he is rarely gone for more than 24 hours from his “central place.”

For some, there’s no place like home!

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Vampire Bucks…not hardly

It has long been the accepted creed of hunters that breaking dawn on the first day of rifle season sends every big buck underground.  Like vampires, they only prowl the woods after dark.  They supposedly “go nocturnal.”

But it seems someone has neglected to inform these bucks they become akin to the undead during the rifle season.  Of the bucks we tracked during the 2013 rifle season, none of them went scurrying for cover when the sun rose. Every buck moved during the shooting hours. Take a look at a few of the buck wanderings from last year’s rifle season: 

Buck #1 – The Timid Explorer: From sunrise to noon on opening day, our Timid Explore held tight biding his time. But that afternoon he made his move traveling more than 3 miles through an area where we had no record of him ever being since his capture in February. During his travels he crossed 2 township roads, followed some fence rows, and considered crossing another road, but thought better of it and turned back. By sunset, he had returned home near where he started in the morning. See his movements for yourself in the movie below.

Buck #2 – King of the Mountain:  His Majesty spent opening day, the second day, and the first Saturday in a 20 acre area on a mountain top 900 yards and 900 feet above the nearest road. However, on the last Saturday, he spent his morning in one general location– his usual behavior – then decided to go for a walk surveying this kingdom in the afternoon. From 11:40AM to 5:20PM, he traveled a loop of 1.75 miles. At one point, he was within 50 yards of a road. It’s good to be King.

Buck #3 – The High Roller: Hunting season is a high stakes game.  This High Roller wasn’t afraid to bet his life.  He lived (and survived) dangerously. On opening day and the 2 Saturdays, he threw caution to the wind and made long distance movements. Opening day found this buck atop the highest point in his home range. Around 9-ish, he went for a short stroll until noon. Then he made his move.  From noon to 3:20PM, he traveled 1.5 miles down off the mountain heading towards the valley 1,100 feet below. He made similar afternoon movements on both Saturdays. His bet always paid off.   

As you can see, vampires and PA bucks don’t have much in common.  Follow the lead of these bucks.  Pack a lunch, revel in the warm afternoon sun, and keep your eyes peeled for the Timid Explorer, the King, or that reckless High Roller!

-Chris Rosenberry, Supervisor
PGC Deer and Elk Section

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Deer Paparazzi

You stare longingly at that rub made on a 3” sapling.  Looking up through the woods, you can see 3 or 4 more rubs.  You can trace the line he took but he is nowhere to be found of course.  You missed him but by how long and where could he be now?  

What we see in the woods is history.  Rubs, scrapes, trail cam photos – leave us a day late and dollar short.  If we could only see the present or better yet the future!   

Seeing the future is still a dream but seeing the present…that may be a reality.  Enter the deer paparazzi!  

Some may call us deer biologists, but really we are deer stalkers.  Give us some new fangled technology and we become deer paparazzi.  That new fangled technology is GPS collars and with a few key strokes they can track that buck every 20 minutes. A dot on a map every 20 minutes…72 dots a day…and nearly 1,000 dots during the 2013 2-week rifle season.  

That’s a lot of dots! Lucky for you, we have picked out the cool stuff and boiled them down into blog posts which will be appearing here over the next few weeks.  

For starters, we can answer that all important question: do I really need to get up this early!?! That cold, dark, December morn is not nearly as welcoming as that cozy, warm bed.     Archery hunters can sleep in.  Why can’t we!  It’s way colder in December than November.

Rest easy gun hunters (in that nice warm bed).  Bucks in December are traveling in the middle of the day too, at least on those all important days of the gun season (i.e., opening day, second day, and the 2 Saturdays). 

On most days, these bucks were settled into their happy place at sunrise usually arriving around 5:00AM. Most of them stayed there enjoying the start of a new day until about 10:00AM. After that, they were on the move. 

When were you mostly likely to catch our GPS-collared bucks moving during those 4 key days of the 2013 rifle season? Check out the graph!  Most bucks moved between noon and 1PM. They laid low for most of the afternoon then picked up their activity again after 4PM. 

How often is life fair?  Ummm, never…so rifle hunters rejoice!  You too can spend an extra hour or 2 in that nice, cozy, warm bed. 

-Chris Rosenberry
PGC Deer and Elk Section Supervisor

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The Predictable Buck

So far, the buck movements we showed you for October were different from September.  Deer 8159 shifted his home range away from the valley and onto the ridge. And Deer 8103 could not be patterned after mid-October.

But this buck is different. He basically did not change his pattern much at all between September and October. Look at the home range boundaries for these two months. His home range in October is hardly any larger than September.

And watch the video. We increased the frame rate in this movie so it won’t take as long to watch as the others.

Sure this deer moves around a lot more after mid-October, but if you sat on top of that ridge you would most certainly see him at some point almost any day of the month.

But don’t just look where he travels. Look where he doesn’t go!

His home range is surrounded on three sides by valleys. Notice that he never crosses the streams located at the bottom of the valley. This is no coincidence.

Most animals use physical features of the landscape to define the boundaries of their normal travels. This pattern occurs over and over again among deer. Most commonly, streams, roads, pipelines, and powerlines are all used by deer to define the boundary of their home range.

Does that mean they NEVER cross a stream or road or pipeline? Absolutely not. But often such landscape features are used by deer to define the limits of their normal travels.

For all three bucks we have featured so far, setting up in the middle of their home range would have maximized your chances of catching a glimpse of them. Not near the home range boundary.

And if streams, roads, and pipelines are usually on the edge of a deer’s home range… Maybe there are better places to find that buck!

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