Catching Up

It’s deer season. And between Thanksgiving and the New Year, over 225,000 deer are harvested in Pennsylvania. That’s usually when the reports of tagged deer start rolling in. This year hunters have reported 109 tagged deer harvested with 62 of them from gun season. 

Most are not noteworthy, but some catch our eye. One of those calls came on Monday. Someone reported a Doe 6174. We haven’t seen her in over a decade! She was caught in WMU 4B in February of 2007 as an adult and fitted with a collar. That would make her at least 14.5 years old. Impressive for sure but she isn’t the only deer we’ve had live into her teens.

In 2014, we had a report of a doe in 2G that was 13.5 years old and in 2015, 2 more reported in WMU 2D that were at least 13.5 and 14.5 years old. We have yet to break the 15-year-old mark but it’s coming.

According to the hunter who harvested our latest alumni, she was healthy and in good shape. And after 12 years of sporting a collar, her neck was not worse for wear. Which is something we always like to hear. 

We’ve done our best to give advice to help hunters be successful but with us routinely getting reports of tagged deer with double digit ages, it’s obvious that deer still hold most of the cards. I mean they do have the home field advantage. 

There is no timeline on when hunters need to report a tagged deer to us so we may be catching up with a few more old friends this holiday season. 

-Jeannine Fleegle
Wildlife Biologist
PGC Deer and Elk Section

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The Ultimate Guide to Hunting Big Woods Deer

Too many years ago, I did a deep dive into the variation in the age structure of deer harvests in Pennsylvania. Looking at the percentage of 6-month-old, 1.5-year-old, and >2.5-year-old deer field checked by PGC personnel, I found a small, but statistically significant, difference in the age structure of deer on public lands versus private lands (in some counties). 

Surprisingly, more older deer were harvested on public lands than private lands!

All this was before antler point restriction regulations were even a whisper. I didn’t give these findings much thought because (a) no one would believe me, and (b) I had no other data to support why this might be or whether it was just some artefact of sampling.

Conventional wisdom, as we all know, is that harvest rates on public lands are higher than on private lands.

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, however, you know that we have learned some things about deer that might explain how some deer survive longer on public land.

If you’re not a long-time reader, you’re in luck! We put all the good stuff in one post to catch you up. 

First things first

To get older you must survive. Obviously.

To survive, you must avoid being harvested (the #1 cause of mortality for deer in Pennsylvania). The harvest rates documented on The Deer-Forest Study are some of the lowest we’ve seen since we began radiocollaring adult deer in 2002 in different management units across Pennsylvania. 

And we have multiple examples of study deer living into their teens! Check out the tale of the Katniss Everdeen of the white-tailed deer world – a 13-year-old doe we captured as a fawn in 2001 in WMU 2G.

Winning strategies…of deer

Deer have a few tricks up their sleeve to avoid hunters. The most critical is a safe zone. Deer that survive discover a spot within their home range where they don’t get disturbed by hunters. 

It might appear to be reasoned behavior, but it’s not – just a learned behavior. When deer are disturbed, they do what deer do – run away. If they run to a spot where they don’t get disturbed again, then they will run back there next time. Memory is a wonderful asset for us all. 

Let’s take Hillside Doe, for example. One of my favorites. Her home range was essentially the side of a ridge. By 4 am on the opening day of rifle season, she was settled into her hiding spot. And late afternoon each day, she left it to walk around the camps all night long. Day after day. Brilliant!

If you want to see what that hiding spot looked like, here’s a photo of the spot. 

If you want to see what that hiding spot looked like, here’s a photo of the spot. 

Think you could find this doe and her hiding spot? I scouted it out. Even the dogs were tired!  

Bucks do something similar, but maybe even more devious. Their hiding spots tend to be on ridgetops with a steep slope to the east or south. To see it in action, check out this post we wrote back in 2014.

The other strategy deer use to avoid hunters is to move less. While you’re sitting still in your tree stand, they are lying still in their hiding spot. Home ranges of deer in our study area average about 1 square mile (640 acres) for both males and females outside the breeding season. During the rifle season they average about 100 acres. You can read more about that here.

What you DON’T need to worry about

  1. Vampires – deer don’t go nocturnal. In fact, some of our bucks generally exhibit more movement in the afternoon than the morning. We wrote a couple of posts about this phenomenon. Check out Early Bird gets the Buck and Vampire Bucks to see for yourself. 
  2. Werewolves – deer don’t howl at the full moon or any other moon for that matter. It doesn’t “phase” them. It shouldn’t “phase” you. Jessica Hepner, an undergraduate whose grandfather had always told her that deer were less active during the day when the moon was full, set out to answer that question using data on female deer in October. She found they walked just a few meters more or less – the equivalent to an extra bathroom break during the day for us. 
  3. Witchcraft – regardless of the storm that is conjured, rain and wind are hardly a bother for deer. Jessica tackled this question as well and concluded that you have no excuse to stay home when the weather is terrible!  My personal experience on a rainy and cold opening day was that the deer outlasted me but seemed to move just as much!/early-bird-gets-the-buck-or-maybe-not/Vampires – deer don’t go nocturnal. In fact, some of our bucks generally exhibit more movement in the afternoon than the morning. We wrote a couple of posts about this phenomenon. Check out Early Bird gets the Buck and Vampire Bucks to see for yourself. 
  4. Werewolves – deer don’t howl at the full moon or any other moon for that matter. It doesn’t “phase” them. It shouldn’t “phase” you. Jessica Hepner, an undergraduate whose grandfather had always told her that deer were less active during the day when the moon was full, set out to answer that question using data on female deer in October. She found they walked just a few meters more or less – the equivalent to an extra bathroom break during the day for us. 
  5. Witchcraft – regardless of the storm that is conjured, rain and wind are hardly a bother for deer. Jessica tackled this question as well and concluded that you have no excuse to stay home when the weather is terrible!  My personal experience on a rainy and cold opening day was that the deer outlasted me but seemed to move just as much!

Can hunters win?

Hunters are clearly at a disadvantage. Should you just play the odds and hope you’re lucky? Or is there some strategy you can follow to get one of those older bucks? 

Well, our most famous deer of all time, Buck 8917, had a hiding spot on a ridgetop that I visited. Check out his story and review the reader comments that follow. There may be a successful strategy, but it will take a lot of investment on your part!

We wish all hunters a safe and successful hunting season. May the odds be ever in your favor. We’ll be back on the flip side of deer season to see who bested deer at their own game.

-Duane Diefenbach and Jeannine Fleegle

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Did you hear that?

A swarm of insects. An alien UFO. No, it’s a UAV. What’s a UAV, you ask? An unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone. 

I have been aware of UAVs for a while. Their use in wildlife management and research as been growing for over a decade. I can think of lots of applications but had no experience with them…until this summer. Advancing technology and increased affordability has made for a growing private consumer market. So when my BFF and family came to visit with their new toy, I was excited. 

Smaller than your standard laptop, it’s like a remote-controlled car that flies and has a camera! Here’s some of the footage from this recreational flying machine.

Seeing my house from the air was super cool! This little machine cost less than $400. Given the smartphone I carry around in my pocket costs twice that much, this price point is well within reach of many. As you can tell from the video, it’s not a top end UAV and we were still learning how to use it.

For biologists wishing to conduct surveys, UAVs are safer and more economical than traditional aerial surveys in remote places with unpredictable weather. From fish to sea birds to marine mammals, UAVs have increased accuracy and accessibility. Could this hold true for terrestrial species…say like elk?

But for all the promise UAVs hold, there is a downside. The biggest of these is wildlife disturbance. Biologists carrying out field studies or surveys want to observe an animal in its natural state. If the incessant buzz of an oversized bumblebee causes an animal to flee or changes their behavior, then it really doesn’t help. In my unscientific summer fun flights, deer were not happy. They were long gone before the UAVs even got close to them. 

And then there is the reaction we can’t see. Physiological responses to stress also are a concern. Black bears fitted with bio-loggers showed increase heart rates in response to UAVs. One even elicited a response in the den. If your species is endangered or already exposed to high levels of environmental stress, adding to it by spying on them from the air isn’t going to help.

These concerns have led to the development of best management practices to minimize disturbance of wildlife when using UAVs for research. Current restrictions for UAV use in field research already include compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act; UAVs remain within sight of the pilot; and use can’t occur at night or in national parks or wilderness areas. Flights also must stay below 400 feet. 

Strict guidelines already exist for researchers on how they interact with wildlife (including those above) but hobbyists don’t have these same limitations. And with everyone wanting to “go viral,” wildlife pay the price. It prompted an ecologist at the University to Idaho to compile a list of Youtube videos showing UAVs harassing animals. For those of us who have dedicated our careers to wildlife management and conservation, it is upsetting to say the least. 

It seems the biggest drawback of UAV use as a tool for biologists is ethics. The wildlife community deals with tradeoffs all the time which include ethics of our methodology. This is no different. Current UAV technology and regulations are limiting but that technology is improving every day. It won’t be long before we can use them. But like FLIR, it is only a tool. It can’t count every deer (or elk) in the woods and must be used responsibly. 

-Jeannine Fleegle
Wildlife Biologist
PGC Deer and Elk Section

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Grounded

Duane and I have been beating the non-toxic ammo drum for over 2 years now. I have been converted from lead naysayer to active campaigner following my grandmother’s sage advice. Duane has shared his pilgrimage from lead ammunition to exclusively using non-toxic ammunition while hunting.  

Duane recently read a letter to the editor that expressed the writer’s disbelief that eagles were dying from lead poisoning. So in this post we put some faces to toxic lead exposure. 

The first eagle that Centre Wildlife Care (CWC) treated for lead poisoning was in 2008. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last. 

Here are a few more patients:

Lead-eagle3

Lead-eagle2

Lead-eagle4

All of the eagles that have arrived at CWC since 2013 have tested positive for lead in their blood. Most need treatment. Some die. Birds with lead poisoning are weak, emaciated, and uncoordinated. They often are not able to move, fly, or walk. This leaves them vulnerable to other injuries. Let’s face it – being grounded is not a good scenario for a bird. 

CWC also notes that most of these birds arrived during or soon after the hunting season. Eagles are not above scavenging to get a free meal. Use of lead ammunition contaminates carcasses and makes it available to eagles and a host of other avian scavengers like hawks, vultures, and crows. All of which have shown up at CWC.

California became the first and only state to ban lead-based ammunition for the taking of any wildlife for any reason with a firearm. This ban was phased in over a 5 year period with the final phase completed in July 2019. But it’s not as easy as outlawing lead-based ammunition. 

Higher cost of non-lead ammunition, inconsistent availability of some non-lead ammunition, and uninformative and confusing labeling of non-lead products by manufacturers hasn’t made the transition smooth for hunters and ranchers. But state agencies, non-profit organizations, and sportsmen are working together to eliminate wildlife exposure to lead ammunition.

Lead is toxic. To people. To wildlife. And there is more of it in your deer meat than you realize if you use lead bullets. 

There are alternatives available. If you haven’t yet sighted in your deer rifle now is a good time to pick up a box of non-toxic ammunition.

People and eagles do not need to be exposed to lead from hunting or recreational shooting. Until they aren’t, Duane and I will keep beating our drum. 

-Jeannine Fleegle
Wildlife Biologist
PGC Deer and Elk Section
 
Photo credits: Robyn Grabowski, Centre Wildlife Care; Chet Gottfried

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Little Fish, Big Pond

Several years ago we wrote a series of posts about male and female dispersal. The first article in the series can be found here.

Dispersal is a major life event. For males that turn 1 year of age, it can occur in the spring or fall. In Pennsylvania, about 75% of yearling males eventually disperse. Some of it occurs in the spring when mom is about to give birth to another litter. The remainder occurs in the fall and is tied to competition for mates.

When antler point restrictions were implemented, the proportion of yearling males that dispersed in the fall went from 50% to 70%. With more, older males in the population, there was more male-male competition for mating. There were more big fish in the pond making it harder for those little fish to find a date. This “new” reality would encourage more yearling males to disperse in the fall to seek out areas with less competition from other males (i.e. other ponds with fewer big fish to contend with).

I was reminded of the plight of the yearling buck when I saw a video my neighbor captured of two males interacting. One is clearly a yearling 3-pt buck and the other is probably 2.5-year-old 8-pt buck. Watch their behavior.

The larger male is standing still daring the younger buck to do something. But the younger buck is smart. He’s not aggressive, avoids eye contact, and tentatively engages.

But he’s no competition for the larger-racked deer and quickly retreats. Live to fight another day as the saying goes. 

The best thing this yearling could do is disperse. My neighbor’s property has at least 3 other bucks as big as the 8-pt. His pond is full!

-Duane Diefenbach

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Does – The forgotten rut participants

Compared to bucks, there are twice as many does in the woods. Yet they are largely ignored.

As a deer manager, females are much more important than males, but they aren’t nearly as popular. Jeannine has lamented many times about antler vision causing bucks to get all the attention! [Don’t get me started! Without does, there would be no rut or bucks making questionable decisions.]

If you can stand it, we’ll take a closer look at the movements of this invisible driver of the rut.

Here are two females in early October. You’ll notice that compared to the bucks, they have more locations where movement is <5 yards/hr. 

What happens as the peak of the rut gets closer (first 2 weeks of November)?

See anything different? You should.

As we all know, buck movements increase during the rut. For the four bucks we investigated in recent blog posts, here is a graph of their movements by 2-week periods. 

Doe-graph1

For every buck, their speed was lower in early October than in November.

Now look at the females.

Doe-graph2

There is no change in one female and the other actually slows down during the first 2 weeks of November. If bucks are running around looking for females to breed, there is no need for a female who wants to be found to do the same thing. By restricting her movements, she is easier to find. [And I’d say a lot wiser 😉]

If you are lost in the wilderness, STOP and let yourself be found. Does aren’t lost. They know exactly what they are doing.

Female movements are just as interesting and insightful as those of bucks. Understanding the behavioral ecology of white-tailed deer means more than just studying the ones that grow bones on their head!

-Duane Diefenbach

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A (Ridge and) Valley Buck

We know that dispersing yearling bucks tend to disperse parallel to the ridges in this part of Pennsylvania. Do those bumps in the landscape affect movements or home range when they get to where they are going?

Let’s ask Buck 28357. He was at least 2.5 years old in 2018. He lived on state forest land (until he was harvested the second week of rifle season). This area of state land included everything from the valley floor to the ridge top. The ridge to the north topped 2000’ in elevation and the valley floor sat about 1140’. Where did Buck 28357 choose to live and move given these options?  

In early October, there are few instances when he moved less than 5 yards in an hour (yellow dots). Even though he’s on the move, he really doesn’t scale any heights.  

In late October, he still constantly on the move but he maxes out at just under 1600’ elevation.

In November, his movement rates triple. During the first two weeks of November, he averaged 312 yards/hr, up from 112 yards/hr during October.

What effects ridges and valleys have on home ranges and movements is anything but clear. We’ve seen bucks with home ranges centered on ridge tops, side hills, and valleys. Buck 28357 decided living closer to the valley floor was the place to be. 

-Duane Diefenbach

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Disappearing Act

Ever watched a buck on your game camera go from spring nubs, to a full velvet rack in summer, to polished bone in fall, to…NOWHERE!

Disappearing into thin air is a buck magic trick that few hunters find amusing. While those expensive GPS collars can’t predict where our bucks are going, they can at least tell us where they’ve been

Buck 12783 is our latest buck to pull this disappearing act.

Our master of illusion is at least 2.5 years old. For his first trick, he balances his home range on the slope of a very steep ridge. Yup, it looks like he lived at an angle half of October.

His home range was only about a ¼-mile across. Not much of a pattern but good luck finding me! Cardio anyone?

But let’s say you did find him on your game cameras. Check out what happens in late October.

That’s right, in about 12 hours he travels 3-4 miles as the crow flies to establish a new home range for the rut! He never returns to his slanted homestead the rest of the hunting season. See for yourself!

As Alfred Lord Tennyson says, “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Don’t ask me why deer do this. Maybe to drive hunters mad. But he’s not the only one we’ve seen with a bachelor pad. Perhaps it’s just youthful exuberance!

-Duane Diefenbach

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Big Woods Buck of the Week

Buck 28356 was at least 3.5 years old in 2018. Unfortunately, he won’t be getting any older as he was harvested on opening day of the 2018 rifle season.

His home range was just north of Rte 44 in an area with travel access only via gated logging roads. The elevation ranged from about 2000’ at the stream to 2460’ on the tops of the ridges. You can see for yourself.  Plug Latitude 41.691535, Longitude -77.863201 into an online map – the coordinates are near the center of his home range.

If we generalize, Buck 28356 is pretty typical in his movements. In early October, he averaged 97 yards per hour. Note that there are only 2 locations when he traveled less than 5 yards in an hour. The breeding season technically has started but only a few does are in estrus at this time, but the bucks know what’s coming. 

Slow and steady wins the race. Bucks do not travel fast, but they travel constantly.

In late October, he averaged 88 yards per hour. Statistically not different from early October. However, he does start to expand his travels further south.

In November things change big time! He now averages 259 yards/hr and he greatly expands his home range. The only locations where movement was less than 5 yards/hr were in a clearcut. Did he find a lady friend there?

You’ve seen the graphs of the turning angles of his movements. Below is November’s graph to refresh your memory. 

Fig7-Nov28356

Notice how there are peaks at -150 degrees and +150 degrees. Evidence that he made long-distance moves across his home range, then made a near about-face and headed to the other side of his home range. By crisscrossing his home range, he is maximizing opportunities to find females in estrus.

-Duane Diefenbach

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Running in Circles

One of our astute readers noted that this season’s first case study, Buck 11993, seemed to travel in a counter-clockwise direction. I thought that was a pretty interesting observation – and worthy of more investigation [Duane might have too much time on his hands].

For a buck to travel in a counter-clockwise pattern, he would have to make more left turns than right. In the animal movement literature that is called the “turning angle” (And yes! there is a complete field of study related to animal movement!) 

The turning angle is not the direction the animal moves, but the change in direction. Turning angle is the deviation from straight line travel as illustrated in the figure below. 

Max turning angles are 180 degrees: -180 degrees is a complete about-face to the left; +180 degrees is a complete about-face to the right. Zero degrees is straight ahead.

For each of the 2-week periods I made the movie for Buck 11993, I graphed the probability of turning a given angle – the higher the point on the curve the more likely Buck 11993 was to turn at that angle.

For early October (pre-rut period), the peak is right around zero meaning that if this buck was traveling in a given direction it just kept going straight. He rarely made 180 degree turns (an about-face).

With a little calculus we can figure out what percentage of the time he made different types of turns! About 32% of the time he was turning within -50 to 50 degrees. 

It turns out that 50.7% of the time he was turning to the right! But it’s unlikely that made him go in circles.

Moving to late October (early rut), Buck 11993 becomes more mobile increasing his movements from 84 yards/hour to 117 yards/hour.  His turning angles look like an off center mound. 

Fifty-four percent of the time he’s turning right. Is he circling his home range? Doubtful – it’s still almost a coin flip as to the direction he turns, and the angle of those turns are pretty evenly distributed. 

As with everything deer related, the rut in November throws all the rules, patterns and logic out the window. He makes more small turning angles to the left – see the peak circled in red (52.1% of the time he’s turning to the left rather than the right).

But if he turns to the right, there’s a good chance he’s almost doing a 180 degree turn (circled in blue).

Hunters might love this stuff.  But does this tell us anything about buck behavior or patterns of movement hunters yearn for? I’m not sure all the calculus, statistics, and graphs in the world could do that. But it’s still fun!

Our next case study will be Buck 28356 who was at least 3.5 years old in 2018. Below are graphs of his turning angles. Can you can predict if he’s running in circles?!

-Duane Diefenbach

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Did you see a deer today?

Imagine if you NEVER saw a deer. Ever! That’s what Pennsylvania was like.  There were no deer. Or so few that if you saw one, it made the newspaper. Today you’d post it on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.  You go to work or school and tell all your friends and coworkers. 

Did you see a deer today? Did you tell anyone about it? No? 

White-tailed deer might be our nation’s biggest conservation success story. From extirpation to the most abundant big game species on the continent. In 1890, the nationwide population estimate for white-tailed deer was 300,000. Less than last year’s statewide harvest. 

By 1890, 70% of Penn’s Woods had turned into agricultural fields. If you were to ask a patch of dirt in this state what it wants to be when it grows up, the answer would be a forest. Pennsylvania’s slice of the mid-Atlantic was born to grow trees and it is so named for this unceasing will of the land to be dressed in timber. 

Of course, over 100 years later, things are different still. Trees and deer are back but the complexion of the landscape for these giants is light years from where it began. 

Why this walk down memory lane? The Deer-Forest study is entering its 7th year. Deer and forests are soulmates but that doesn’t mean they don’t have relationship issues. Forests are the strong, dependable partner but they have many demands put on them. Invasive plants, insect and disease outbreaks, soil chemistry changes, and the sole provider to deer and a host of other wonderful species. Deer love forests but the price of that love can be high if forests are “loved” by too many. 

We have learned a lot from the Deer-Forest study much of which we have shared on this blog. But trees grow slow and there are still many questions. While it is fun and intriguing to see where and how deer move, the Deer-Forest study is so much more than that.

The objectives of the study remain the same:

  1. Test the assumption that FIA categorical deer impact levels accurately reflect the effect of deer browsing on forest conditions. Identify modifications that could improve the accuracy of monitoring programs of forest conditions in relation to deer browsing.
  2. Evaluate the effectiveness of DMAP to increase antlerless harvest in a local area.
  3. Monitor hunter behavior and attitudes in response to changes in deer abundance.
  4. Test the ability of DCNR’s Vegetation Impact Protocol to detect changes in vegetation in response to changes in deer abundance.

With so many more mouths to feed and the changing climate, our forests need to be robust and resilient. Understanding the relationship between deer and our forests will ensure we are doing the best for both. 

Those objectives listed above are how scientists communicate. But we really do get inspired by our forests. Really, we do! Take this little forest creature, the fingernail clam.

fingernail clam
Seems tinier than a fingernail! These creatures live in vernal pools (pools of water in the forest that only exist in winter and spring) and can travel from one pool to another by clamping on to the feet of salamanders, like this one.
salamander
But why would we be interested in the fate of the lowly fingernail clam and is it really important to deer? Well, clams depend on calcium to make their shell. As our forest soils have become more acidic over the past 30-50 years due to acid deposition, there is less calcium available for clams and snails. Fewer clams and snails mean that forest birds, like the ovenbird, require larger home ranges to raise young.

Similarly, less calcium in our forest soils means that tree seedlings are exposed to more aluminum (a toxic metal) and grow more slowly. In turn, their leaves and twigs contain less calcium. Deer need calcium for antler growth and lactation which means they need to eat more tree seedlings to gain those nutrients.

The Deer-Forest Study has some clear goals and objectives related to how the PGC and Bureau of Forestry make management decisions, but the real beauty of this research is discovering the inter-relationships between deer and forests so we can make the best decision for both.

-Jeannine Fleegle and Duane Diefenbach

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Shut-eye

A reader recently asked me about buck movements in early autumn. He was interested in figuring out when and where bucks bed down during the day and how much they move.

While the amazing powers of our satellite GPS collars can tell us where the deer is located, they cannot tell us what it is doing. However, with a little creative thinking and some assumptions, we can infer some behavior by looking at the speed and distance it traveled since the previous location. Sometimes we even have locations of multiple deer in the same area. Was there a fight? Or maybe some romance

In 2018, we had deer with GPS collars collecting locations every hour beginning 1 October. Using these data, we can calculate the distance moved from the previous hour. Because there is some error in the GPS location, I arbitrarily decided that if a movement was <5 meters from the previous hour the deer was resting.

Over the next couple of weeks we’re going to take a close look at the movements of bucks from October 1st through November 15th. This covers the pre-rut (Oct 1-15), early rut (Oct 15-31) and the rut (Nov 1-15). By the end of October about a third of adult females have been bred. By the middle of November half of all adult females have been bred.

Our first test case is Buck 11993 on the Susquehannock State Forest. He was captured in 2016 and was at least 4.5 years old in 2018.

In the movie below, the yellow dots represent locations where the deer moved <5 meters in the previous hour. Can you see a pattern? The yellow dots seem to occur at higher elevation sites, but other than that…

Overall, in early October he doesn’t move very much or very fast. Maybe catching some zzz’s while he still can. 

By mid-October, things are starting to change. In the movie below you can see that there are fewer resting sites, and they’re not in the same location!

And finally, there is no rest for the wicked as the peak of the rut approaches!

You might go mad trying to find a pattern. But if you do, write a comment below.  Perhaps we can test whether the pattern holds with other bucks. That’s what hunting is all about, isn’t it!

-Duane Diefenbach

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