Deer Science Archives - Page 22 of 43

4 08, 2017

2017 EHD Tracker: Deer Disease Reported in SE Kentucky

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00August 4th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Deer Science|4 Comments

It’s that time of year again when hunters and wildlife managers nervously wait and see if Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease will hit their region, and if so how bad of a deer-killing year it will be. EHD, which is transmitted to whitetails by biting midges, typically occurs from August through October, until the first frost in an area kills the midges that carry the disease. Let’s hope this year’s first reported case of the disease, in Kentucky in July, is random and not a harbinger of bad things to come across the U.S. later this summer. This is the first reported outbreak of EHD in the Bluegrass State since 2007. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife officers say a dozen sick and dead [...]

21 07, 2017

Summer Whitetail Fun: 10,000 Trail-Cam Pictures, 30 Bucks!

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00July 21st, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|Comments Off on Summer Whitetail Fun: 10,000 Trail-Cam Pictures, 30 Bucks!

I have been swapping emails with one of our bloggers who has a very unique situation going on with his local whitetail herd. So unusual that even super deer biologist Grant Woods is impressed. From our hunter, who has 2 cameras out: I got more than 5,000 pictures in the month of June alone and most of them were bucks. This leads me to believe that our property is the summer home for the majority of the bucks in the area. There are easily over 30 different bucks that I am getting pictures of every day. I only have 2 cameras up, and they are only 250 yards apart. I checked them again recently, and one camera had another 1,066 [...]

12 07, 2017

How Bad Was The Mule Deer Winterkill?

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00July 12th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Management, Deer Science, Mule Deer|1 Comment

I recently attended the 2017 North American Deer Summit, where Jim Heffelfinger of the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported on the status of the mule deer across the American West. Jim said that while mule deer went through tough times in recent years, the good news is that muley populations have been trending up, and are stable or increasing slightly in most states. But Jim did point to the hard, snowy winter of 2016-17 in some regions of the West, saying that "will lead to a dip in deer numbers this year in some states." Well, turns out it will be quite a big dip in places. U.S. News and World Reports has just published a compilation of how [...]

10 07, 2017

Indiana Deer Covered With Warts

admin2020-06-10T09:16:11-04:00July 10th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science|2 Comments

Cameron sent me this image via Twitter: I was driving down the road and saw her. Got out and walked within 15 yards and filmed with my phone. I retweeted the picture and dozens of people want to know what is going on here. Biologists say that these growths, commonly called “deer warts,” are cutaneous fibromas and they are caused by a virus. The virus could be transmitted from one deer to another by biting insects, just like bluetongue is transmitted. The warts are hairless tumors that can be found on any part of the skin, but they rarely extend below the hide. They are usually temporary on the body and can vary from 1/2 to 8 inches in diameter, [...]

14 06, 2017

2017 Deer Update: How Are Mule Deer Doing?

admin2020-06-10T09:16:12-04:00June 14th, 2017|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Management, Deer Science, Mule Deer|Comments Off on 2017 Deer Update: How Are Mule Deer Doing?

At the 2017 North American Deer Summit last week, Jim Heffelfinger of the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported on the status of the mule deer across the American West. Mule deer went through tough times in the 1990s, and populations declined in many areas. More than 20 years later most people still think mule deer numbers are down, “but actually there’s good news,” said Jim. “Mule deer populations have been trending up, and are stable or increasing slightly in most states.” Jim pointed to Utah, Idaho and California as bright spots, with herds on the slight rise. But he did acknowledge that the winter of 2016 was brutal in parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, where there should be [...]