Environmental Characteristics Of Whitetail Deer

White tailed Deer
She looked left and then right. When she saw it was all clear;, the whitetail deer dashed across the opening with her fawn. She is looking for a safe place for her fawn to play and for her to eat. Whitetail deer depend on their environment for survival, but people can also help them survive with proper management practices.
Whitetail deer are herbivores, leisurely grazing on most available plant foods. Their stomachs allow them to digest a varied diet, including: leaves, twigs, fruits and nuts, grass, corn, alfalfa, and even lichens and other fungi. The typical diet of the whitetail deer does not remain constant all year long. They eat what is easily accessible. In the wintertime food is significantly harder to find,
and deer eat a lot of buds, bark and shoots then. Other foods that are preferred by these foraging animals include: sumac foliage, wild crabapple, dogwood fruit, clover leaves and sedges. Deer eat relatively rapidly, and as a protective measure they never linger in the same spot. These animals will munch on a little bit of something in one area, and then quickly travel over to the next without so much as a second thought. One second you see a deer, the next you don’t.
Quality deer habitat includes a mixture of trees, shrubs, vines, forbs, grasses and other plants such as fungi and sedges.
Certain plants within each of these categories benefit deer more than others. Desirable plants should be well interspersed throughout an area, so that the whole area functions as deer habitat. The most important aspect of deer habitat is an adequate abundance and diversity of forbs and woody plants. Forbs are soft-stemmed, broad-leaved, flowering plants and include most flowering plants species. Forbs are the most important deer food plants and include many species that some people call weeds. When deer have diverse choices, they generally prefer certain forbs over most woody plants and grasses. Of the plants eaten, forbs generally are more digestible and have more protein available for deer than woody plants and grasses. Legumes are probably the most important family of forbs in deer
diets.
Most hunters consider a 5½-year-old buck to be really old. I agree with them, as only a small percentage of bucks live that long in the wild. In general, however, it’s not the “wild” that’s hard on them. It’s humans that determine longevity of most wild deer, and we are very adept at removing a high percentage of bucks at young ages.
Adult whitetails have reddish-brown coats in summer which fade to a duller grayish-brown in winter.
Male deer, called bucks, are easily recognizable in the summer and fall by their prominent set of antlers, which are grown annually and fall off in the winter. Only the bucks grow antlers, which bear a number of tines, or sharp points. During the mating season, also called the rut, bucks fight over territory by using their antlers in sparring matches. Female deer, called does, give birth to one to three young at a time, usually in May or June and after a gestation period of seven months. Young deer, called fawns, wear a reddish-brown coat with white spots that helps them blend in with the
forest.
Hunting whitetail deer is fun. It also can be very challenging because you have to sit very quiet and still. People hunt deer for meat for their families. For years venison has been a good source of food for many people. From a deer, you can cut steaks, grind hamburger meat, make sausage and much more. You can use it in very close to the same way you use beef. Many people just hunt them for the antlers. They enjoy mounting the antlers for bragging rights. Some people also will have a shoulder mount made or some will even have a full body mount made. There are many ways to hunt for deer. In our area the most popular way to hunt is with a feeder and deer stand. Most people will use corn to lure deer into the feeding area. Some people use other types of protein feeds or they will even plant food plots that attract the deer. Then the hunter must sit very still and quiet and wait for the deer to come into the area to feed. Deer have a very good sense of smell so it is very important to set your stand in a position so that the deer can’t smell you. To be a successful hunter, you need to study the daily activities of the deer and figure out their feeding pattern and from which direction they enter the feeding area. There is a lot of skill that goes into being a good deer hunter.
Hunting whitetail deer is not just going out and shooting a deer, you have to have some management. To manage deer properly, you must pay attention to the type of deer you are seeing in your area. In some counties, you are allowed to hunt both does and bucks but just because it’s legal does mean you should just do it. If you go out and you're seeing lots of small bucks and hardly any does don’t shoot a doe. You may be in an area that needs to build up the doe population. When you are hunting bucks, it is a good idea to observe what you have and choose what deer is best to shoot. Just because it is a legal buck doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to shoot it if you are trying to manage properly. Study the deer and see what bucks are around and try to select the oldest buck instead of the young ones. Some years, it may be necessary to pass up shooting a buck all together if it will help grow your deer to be bigger and better next year. There is a lot to consider when managing your deer population. Whitetail deer are good for meat. Deer hunting is fun but it also can expensive. You have to get the corn and a deer stand. Whitetail deer depend on their environment for survival but people can also help them survive with proper management practices.
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