I saw this photo on the Bowhunting.com Facebook and wondered: Is that sucker the biggest cactus buck ever? Although cactus bucks are rare, I’ve seen a good number of them over the years. But nothing approaching the gnarly mass that this one has. I have no idea where this freak was shot. Many people will think this buck had his balls injured or torn off (ouch!), but this explanation from Matt Knox (15th paragraph down), deer project coordinator for Virginia, fits to a tee: A unique male antler anomaly is a “cactus” buck. These bucks suffer from very low testosterone production due to hypogonadism or cryptochidism (i.e., their testicles are the size of a green pea or never descend from [...]

Saw this on Whitetail Overload’s Facebook page. One of the craziest photos I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of crazy deer photos in my day. This was obviously caused by some sort of injury to the deer and the rack (hit by car I would suspect) but how that beam (black because the velvet dried hard on it) grew down and through the deer’s mouth defies explanation. There is always something new and unusual to see in the whitetail world.

This respected group holds an annual conference whereby biologists, managers and researchers present their recent findings on deer biology and management. The 2014 meetings just wrapped in Georgia. I followed QDMA Tweets from the conference, #SEDSG. Some science hot off the press: • Researchers at Auburn University found that bucks both young and old react negatively to hunting pressure in the same way. They also found that bucks are 4 times more likely to come to a food plot in daylight on opening day as later in the season. • Troubling finding #1: EHD disease continues to expand northward in the U.S. and further outbreaks are expected. Furthermore, new strains of EHD are showing up and problematic because individual deer [...]

As I blog this, I look out the window at 10 inches of snow on the ground. It’s 19 degrees…and this is Virginia. I saw where snow is on the ground in 40 of 50 states. In the Midwest and Northeast it’s particularly cold and snowy, and has been for months. No doubt the whitetails there are under tremendous stress, having trouble finding food under deep snow, and fighting to maintain body heat that is critical to their survival. We hunters wonder and worry: How are the herds doing? Two scientists from frozen regions weigh in. "After a tough winter that had a (negative) impact on deer numbers in 2013, this certainly isn't what any of us had hoped for," [...]