Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus)

     The whitetail deer is the most plentiful big-game animal in North America.  It has adapted to man's continual encroachment of its habitat and has survived vigorous hunting pressure while other species that were once as widely distributed have steadily declined.  With its superb senses and is ability to live near man, the whitetail is at once an available and infinitely challenging quarry.  When a hunter goes after a whitetail deer, he is matching wits with one of the smartest game animals in the country.

     Unlike many members of the deer family, the whitetail deer are native to North America, having developed in the Miocene and Pliocene periods, 20 million to 10 million years ago, and evolved into the form we see today about a million years ago during the Pliocene period.  When the Isthmus of Panama bridged the gap between North and south America the deer spread southward.

     The deer genus was given the name Odocoileus in 1832.  The naturalist had found a deer tooth as a fossil in a Virginia cave and it is thought that he was naming the animal "hollow tooth," which would have produced the name Odontocoelus, but his Greek was poor and Odocoileus it became.         

     The whitetail differs from the mule or blackmail deer mainly in the shape of its antler.  Whitetail antlers consist of two main beams that grow out and backward from their bases and then sweep forward.  Single tines, or points, grow upward off these main beams, and there is a small tine above the brow.  The mule and blacktail deer have antlers that branch into forks, with each fork branching again into two tines.  There is also a brow tine near the base of each antler, but it is smaller than those on the whitetail.

     The most common misconception about the whitetail is its size.  The average whitetail stands between 36 and 40 inches high at the top of the shoulder.  Especially big bucks may be 42 inches high.  They have a total length of between 60 to 75 inches and an average weight of about 150 pounds. 

     They also vary their color with the season.  All whitetail shed their coats twice a year.  In the Spring they get a new coat that is a bright reddish-brown, the hair solid and thin.  As cold weather approaches in the fall this hair is replace by the winter coat, which shades from bluish to a grayish-brown.  The winter hair is long, kinky, and filled with air pockets providing excellent insulation.  I have often seen deer whose bodies have lost so little heat that the snow and sleet did not melt on their backs but remained encrusted on the hair.

     Despite regional differences, deer are colored basically alike.  They have a jet-black nose with two white bands behind it.  The face is brown, the eyes circled with white.  The inside of the ears, beneath the chin and the large throat patch are pure white.  The body is darkest down the middle of the back, shading lighter till it abruptly reaches the white stomach.  The upper portion of the legs on the outside are brown and the insides are white.  The top side of the tail is brown with an almost black stripe running down the center.  The underside of the tail and rear portion of the deer is a sparkling white.  Like the pronghorn antelope, the whitetail can erect and flare its rump hairs when alarmed.  However, bucks do not flaunt their tails as commonly as do the does.  It is thought that does do this to guide their young as they flee from danger through the dark night or deep forest.  When the deer clasps its tail down tightly and keeps the rump hairs bent inward, it is almost impossible to see any of the telltale white.   

     Deer live in a matriarchal society.  The bucks live separately from the does and their offspring except during the breeding season and part of the winter.  Even when the bucks are with the herd, they do not take over the lead but are led by an old doe.

     Deer are creatures of habit.  If unmolested, they follow the same routine, the same trails, day after day, shifting the pattern only because of weather conditions, hunting pressure, and the availability of food.

     Originally deer were more active during daylight hours.  Pressure from hunters forced them to move under the protective cover of darkness.  By preference deer start to feet about 4:30 each afternoon.  If food is plentiful, they can fill their paunches in less than an hour.  However, if food is plentiful the deer are more fussy and select only the choicest tidbits.  They walk along slowly and nibble at this shoot or that herb, pausing here and there to taste a few leaves.                                  

     Deer need 10 to 12 pounds of food per day to satisfy their needs.  The list of foods they eat covers most types of vegetation.  The diet changes with the season as well as the section of the country the deer inhabit.  High on the list of deer food are red maple, white cedar, white acorns, apples, dogwood, sweetfern, oak, witchhazel, sumac, hemlock, willow, wintergreen, fir, arborvitae, snowberry, greenbriar, bearberry, Oregon-grape and pine.  Of the cultivated crops, corn, alfalfa, clover, cabbage, rape, soybeans, rye, lespedeza and trefoil are all eagerly sought and eaten.

      Within a couple of hours the deer has appeased its hunger; it then seeks out a place of safety to chew its cud.  As darkness has usually fallen by this time, the deer frequently lie down in fields or brushland.  About dawn they become active again and feed till about 6:30 or 7 a.m., when they retire for the day.  Now they look for heavier cover and, if possible, take to the ridges.  As the sun warms the earth, the thermals rise to the top of the ridges, carrying the scent of everything below up to the deer.  Thus the deer are usually warned well in advance of an enemy's presence.

      When a deer is startled, it leaps from its bed and dashes off as if it had an appointment in the next county.  Actually the deer only runs as far as the nearest cover, then stops and watches its back trail to see if it is being followed,  If it is being followed, it attempts to circle around its pursuer and get back to its original location.

     If the deer is not pursued, it generally lies down again in the first patch of protective cover.

     In warm weather deer seek ponds and lakes, not only to drink but also to feed upon aquatic vegetation.  Wading in deep water also gives them protection against stinging insects.