Background

The white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus macroura, inhabits the forests and riparian woodlands of North and Central America and is abundant in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The white-tail's range includes the southern tier of Canada and stretches to northern South America. The species population is stable, and today these deer are more numerous than they were before the European settlement of North America. In some areas the white-tail has become overabundant, due in part to the animals' flexible feeding habits and adaptation to human settlement, and to the general lack of predators other than man. Natural predators use to include the wolf, coyote, cougar and bobcat, but these carnivores have been extirpated or significantly reduced in the Chesapeake watershed.

Males reach an adult height of 3 to 3 ½ feet at the shoulder, and can weigh up to 400 pounds. Females generally weigh between 70 to 200 pounds. Their russet summer coats softens to a gray-brown in winter, and they have a characteristic long tail, which is white underneath. When alarmed, the deer will raise its tail like a flag, communicating danger to other mature deer or fawns. They are remarkably good swimmers and agile runners, capable of running 35 mph to elude a predator.

Habits and Life Cycle

The white-tailed deer's feeding habits are seasonally adaptive. In spring and summer they consume green plants, which can include aquatic vegetation, leaves, and (a favorite food) raspberry canes. They also eat berries, apples or grapes. Their autumn diet consists of nuts, acorns, and grains such as corn, and in winter they eat woody vegetation, including the bark, twigs and buds of deciduous trees and conifers.

• Rutting season extends from late September through February, with a peak in November.
• Gestation takes between 200 and 210 days. Does reproduce only once a year, in May or June, and usually produce one fawn the first year, but may produce twins or even triplets in the following years, if food is plentiful.
• Fawns stay close to the mother except while she is in the open, foraging for food. They lie very still in the forest during these times; their dappled coat helps camouflage them. Fawns remain in the den for the first couple of weeks, and are weaned between the ages of four and eight months, but begin to graze before this time. They lose their white spots in the fall.
• Males reach puberty at around 18 months, and begin growing their first rack in the spring following their birth.
• Antler size and number of "pints" or tines is determined by light and nutrition, not age; to determine an animal's age requires analysis of the teeth.
• Rack development seems to depend on the availability of light. In the early spring, antler buds appear, and if the male has a previous rack, these new buds help push the old antlers out, the way a new tooth supplants a primary tooth.
• The skin on the antlers, or velvet, protects the bone throughout the year. In autumn, as the lessening light increases the animal's production of testosterone, the velvet begins to dry and slough off. Bucks appear at times to go mad with scratching–running their antlers across any available surface to relieve the itching–and this behavior also appears to have the additional purpose of preparing young bucks for confrontations with other males during mating season.
• Both sexes feed most actively at dusk and just before dawn. They feed in cycles of four to six hours, usually at sunrise, midday, dusk and twice at night.
• Deer are more social in winter and congregate in herds, and tend to disperse and become more solitary in spring.

White-tailed deer are currently overabundant in some regions, which can lead to starvation and a weakening of the population. Many states have begun to modify hunting regulations to prevent overpopulation. Mortality is usually due to hunting, car or train accidents, diseases and parasites, starvation, and predation by dogs. Occasionally fawns are taken by bobcats. The white-tailed deer's life span is between 9 and 12 years.

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Last modified: 12/11/03