Deer Science Archives - Page 30 of 43

24 03, 2015

New Science: Deer Eat Eggs, Baby Birds

admin2020-06-10T09:19:38-04:00March 24th, 2015|BigDeer, Deer Science, Predator Hunting|1 Comment

For years here in VA we have been blaming critters like raccoons, skunks and opossums for for preying on quail nests and contributing to the decline of wild birds here, but could another nest predator be to blame? Whitetail deer! Nola.com: Pam Pietz, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota, set up miniature video cameras that ran 24 hours a day to document the fate of grassland songbird nests. She was surprised to find deer raided as many nests as badgers, and more than weasels or red foxes. I can see a deer munching songbird or quail eggs if it happens across them, but Pietz’s research found they will also eat tiny unborn birds in a nest! Biologists [...]

26 02, 2015

Southeast Deer Study Group 2015

admin2020-06-10T09:19:51-04:00February 26th, 2015|BigDeer, Deer Management, Deer Science|1 Comment

This respected group holds an annual conference at which deer biologists and researchers present their recent findings on whitetail biology and management. The 2015 meetings just wrapped in Arkansas. I followed QDMA Tweets from the conference #SEDSG. Here, some of the most interesting new science (followed by my thoughts): --Plants in poor soils contain all the nutrients deer need, just low in quantity, which you can fix. @UTKnoxville's Craig Harper. (Any dirt can grow big deer; that is where lime and fertilizer come in.) --Bucks of all ages/sizes successfully breed, one reason hunters can't change genetics with trigger decisions. Chad Newbolt @AuburnU (Never was a fan of culling bucks anyhow.) Study of buck breeding success at @AuburnU found 13 of 27 sets [...]

9 02, 2015

How Rare Are White Deer?

admin2020-06-10T09:19:51-04:00February 9th, 2015|BigDeer, Deer Science|6 Comments

Last deer season 2 hunters shot 2 rare and incredibly beautiful white whitetails. One day in October 2014 11-year-old Gavin Dingman shot a 12-point buck with a crossbow. Another day fellow Virginia hunter Daniel Blaha shot this 8-pointer, which is without question the most stunning piebald buck I have ever seen. Just how rare are white deer like this? According to Wisconsin naturalist John Bates, co-author of "White Deer: Ghosts of the Forest," a true albino occurs in about one in 20,000 fawn births. Other biologists say they are much rarer, with only one in 100,000 deer born totally white. As for the genetic variation that causes the brown-and-white piebald, biologists say that less than 1% of all whitetails born will [...]

12 11, 2014

New Deer-Rut Science: Big Bucks Move Midday

admin2020-06-10T09:19:53-04:00November 12th, 2014|BigDeer, Deer Science|3 Comments

Hot off the press, the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State reports: Based on bucks wearing GPS radio collars during the 2013 rut, buck movements declined through the early morning. From 8AM to 11AM, bucks moved the least during that period of the day. But you better be in the woods and ready by 11:00 as buck movements increased to some of their highest levels from 11AM to 2PM. The (chart) above shows movements of bucks wearing GPS radio-collars from November 1st to 10th (early November) and November 11th to 20th (mid-November). The distances bucks moved are in 3-hour periods. Peak buck movements were from 2 to 5AM and from 11AM to 2PM. This further confirms what I have [...]

22 10, 2014

New Science: Whitetail Buck Home Ranges

admin2020-06-10T09:19:54-04:00October 22nd, 2014|BigDeer, Deer Science|2 Comments

For his graduate research project at Auburn, deer researcher Clint McCoy tracked the movements of 37 GPS-collared bucks on a 6,400-acre hunting site with excellent habitat in South Carolina. Read the full story at QDMA.com; here are a few highlights with my observations: Clint found average fall home range size for a buck was 350 acres. A buck’s age did not seem to play a role in how far he moved. “Our two smallest home ranges were yearling bucks at 60 and 90 acres. Our two largest home ranges of 754 and 640 acres were also yearling bucks.” This seems to contradict some earlier studies which found that older bucks have the smallest home ranges of all bucks. But this [...]