In January, find deer hiding in their quiet place — and turn off the cellphone
Even the deer may have been surprised by the recent mid-January heat wave. But normal seasonal temperatures are expected to return this week, just in time for the final days of the 2019-20 deer seasons.
Archers, flintlockers and slug gun hunters who return to the Allegheny County tree stands and posts they occupied in autumn may think all the deer have been shot. It’s more likely the whitetails have shifted to their smaller post-rut ranges.
Typically by this time of year, nearly all does older than 1 year are carrying fawns. A few whose pregnancies were terminated may enter a second estrus, and late-season hunting strategies abound on how to attract them and the resilient bucks that aren’t too tired to chase them. Hunters who struck out in the fall or would like to fill a remaining doe tag will have more opportunity by restricting their searches to the winter ranges of individual deer.
Identifying those core areas takes some work. “... But you learn then where the deer are and don’t waste your time at where they’re not,” said Eugene Potapov, an author and faculty biology instructor at Bryn Athyn College, a small private liberal arts school about 15 miles north of Philadelphia.
In 10 years of Game Commission-licensed study of unfenced suburban deer on the school’s 130-acre campus and adjoining 852-acre land trust, Mr. Potapov’s students and faculty assistants have tracked deer and estimated their density using infrared-trail cameras and radio collars.
Bryn Athyn is credited with developing collars that combine battery-powered Google GPS tracking, text messaging and email blogging — a system now routinely used in academic and government wildlife research worldwide.
Faculty and students tested novel ways of investigating deer impact on vegetation and developed a new method of statistical analysis that provides greater insight into individual deer movements and their interaction.
Their research has focused on human presence and the ecological constraints of suburbia on habitat choices; how deer respond to land management practices; and how deer are affected by moonlight and a variety of weather conditions. Bryn Athyn studies have explored the points of deer road crossings and researched how changing seasons affect habitat choices and home ranges of male and female deer.
The research is peer reviewed and published, and students and faculty are invited to lecture at deer-study seminars.
“We think in terms of deer and humans sharing space and time. Deer respond to human impact, particularly in suburban areas, but are still mainly influenced by natural changes in season and, in does, reproduction,” said Mr. Potapov.
In one six-month 34-deer study of shifting home range structures, one doe was found to have several clearly defined ranges that seasonally fluctuated in size.
The home range was smallest when she was giving birth and nursing. It grew when the fawn began walking, and twice the doe explored a broad area far beyond her typical range parameters. Home ranges were found to expand during periods of estrus and contract again following the rut.
The study found a high degree of “seasonal synchrony” in fluctuating range sizes of neighboring does, with their home areas occasionally intersecting. Those deer may have been mother and daughter.
Bucks in the study predictably expanded and defended their ranges during the rut but retreated to smaller intersecting ranges during non-rutting months.
The study results confirmed previous research suggesting that hunters who hunt their favorite fall locations during the post-rut are likely to see fewer deer, male and female.
While coyotes took spring fawns in the Bryn Athyn study area, the dominant predators of the suburban deer were hunters.
“What we came up with, deer know precisely when and where hunting occurs. That is really important because humans are making noises all the time,” said Mr. Potapov. “[Deer] can sit down and listen to cars go by for days, but one sound from a place it shouldn’t be can cause a panic.”
Sound is important to deer when selecting their post-rut winter ranges, he said.
The quietest spot in a deer’s larger rut range, with proximity to cover, food and water, may become the center of its post-rut home. Don’t blow it with a clumsy walk-in or the untimely music of a cellphone ringtone.