From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Self Regulating Populations
Organization: WP Group
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 20:58:09 GMT


Jeff Achenbach writes:
ja> Because he may win in a confrontation with a wolf.  He will most 
ja> likely lose to a hunter.  This is probably learned behavior.  In 
ja> a park with no hunting, a deer may walk right into your camp.  
ja> They don't do that where I hunt.  I'd be glad to take you to both 
ja> areas if you don't believe it.  Different situations call for 
ja> different responses...  

Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> In an area where hunting is allowed, any deer that would have 
rl> walked into a human camp would have been killed at the outset.  
rl> Would you mind explaining the mechanism whereby survivors could 
rl> have learned vicariously from such experiences?  

From article <1992Aug31.192716.9037@spdc.ti.com>, by achenbac@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Jeff Achenbach):
ja> I am not proposing this as an absolute answer, but since you 
ja> asked I'll make a stab at it.  Deer are naturally wary.  Most 
ja> prey animals are.  The only deer I've personally seen that would 
ja> walk into a camp were in very unnatural environments such as 
ja> parks, where they'd learned they were safe.  Thinking about it 
ja> now, I guess I should reverse the statement I made above.  It 
ja> seems more reasonable that the unwariness of park deer may be the 
ja> learned behavior.  It doesn't really matter.  The point is that 
ja> they are capable of learning.  Many times deer, especially doe, 
ja> travel in a group.  Often you only see individuals, but if you 
ja> startle them you will hear others bounding off through the brush.  
ja> Should you shoot one, the others will be off and running and will 
ja> associate the smells of the camp and the sight of the hunter with 
ja> danger.  I am convinced personally, through observation, that deer 
ja> are very intelligent animals, possibly on the order of a dog.  
ja> How else to explain some of the largest racks on record being 
ja> found near suburban areas, and noone ever had seen the bearer?  
ja> IMO they are capable of learning that hunters are dangerous, and 
ja> even retain this realization the following hunting season.  
ja> That's my explanation why it is so much easier to approach them 
ja> in the summer than after the first few shots are fired (not 
ja> necessarily at deer, even small game hunters seem to put them on 
ja> full alert) in the fall.  

In the case you mentioned previously, you said that deer might walk
into human encampments where hunting is not allowed, yet be far more
cautious where hunting is allowed.  You stated that this suggested
that deer had learned to avoid hunters.

Consider the example I mentioned previously.  Let's suppose you
have a room that's infested with cockroaches, some of which prefer
sunlit walls and some of which prefer dark crevasses.  If you kill
the roaches that prefer light, would it be reasonable for an 
observer to say that the remaining bugs had "learned" to hide?

ja> Russell,
ja> I feel like my answers are becoming awfully long in an attempt to 
ja> make myself perfectly clear?  This is in response to some other 
ja> comments from you.  Am I over doing it?  How about some feedback.  
ja> I don't want to bore everyone by becoming overly verbose.  

You're not boring me.

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals