From: schwae@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Eric A. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: Wolves vs Men
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 06:13:47 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.184320.7720@nlm.nih.gov> young@alw.nih.gov (Jeff Young) writes:
>
>> In article <z82tb0p@rpi.edu>, schwae@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Eric A.
>> Schwartz) writes:
>
>> |> I know calculus, I can figure things like that out.  Sometimes I can
>> |> sense where something comes from, sometimes can't.  Do they know, even
>> |> with films to look over, where the shot that killed Kennedy came from?
>> |> 
>
>> Deer don't have a Warren Commission report to confuse the issue.
>> I didn't say anything about getting out a protractor and examining
>> the evidence, only using your senses.  Next time you see a deer who
>> hasn't seen you, clap your hands loudly and see how long before
>> he's zeroed in on your position.
>
How would I know he hasn't seen me, and how would I know he zeroed in on 
my position?

>> Further, relying on sight isn't the best way to know from where a 
>> bullet comes.  A gun makes a loud noise, the ricochet makes a noise
>> and the bullet makes a noise as it speeds off into the brush.  Your
>> ears aren't a fool-proof direction finder but they are pretty good.
>> A deer's ears are better (cupped and pivotal).
>>  
I don't know about exactly how accurate a deer's directional hearing
sense is, but I'm not sure it is better than ours.  Cats have cupped
pivotal ears, and we can distinguish direction nearly three times better.

>> |> Do you hunt deer only when more than one is present? 
>
>> No, I do stand by the assertion that deer move together
>> especially the young.  In my opinion (only), the hunter has a
>> greater chance of seeing deer moving in groups than he/she
>> does seeing solitary deer.  This has been my experience.  I see
>> the most deer before dawn or after dusk.  The only deer that
>> I have ever seen travelling alone are older, 6+ point bucks.
>> My experience may not hold for gun season because I generally
>> do not hunt during gun season (I sometimes hunt on a friends
>> posted land with my bow during gun season to keep people from
>> "wandering" on to the property).
>>  
Fine.  

>> |>In any
>> |> case, nobody knew Reagan was shot until he started coughing up
>> |> blood in the limo. 
>>   
>> But they sure as hell were scared though.  There wasn't a person in
>> that limo that didn't think that an attempt had been made on the
>> president's life. There wasn't a secret serviceman who hadn't drawn
>> his weapon or jumped on the assailant.  Kinda proves my point don't it?
>
But in the case of deer, they would run off scared, and only the one
that died would know what really happened.  So the rest may regard
the experience as a silly scare, and come to associate guns with
harmlessness.  As far as I'm aware, deer have never been shown to know
how to count, so the loss of one individual would probably not be
noticed, since he would probably die while the rest are running away
and not paying strict attention to each other.   

>> |> Does hunting season coincide with seasons when bucks stick together?
>
>> No.  In fact, the gun hunting season takes place during the rut, a time when
>> deer are not particularly wary - they have other things on their minds.
>
So bucks can't learn by example.  Kinda proves my point don't it? 

>> |> Are the young still following the mother by hunting season?
>
>> In my experience, often they are.  The small bands that I referred to 
>> are sometimes made up of adults and young does/spike bucks.  I have
>> never seen a yearling off by itself.
>
Fine.

>> |> A deer's vision is significantly worse than a human's.  It only gets
>> |> better on very dark nights, when there isn't enough light to use
>> |> any sort of detail vision.
>
>> I'd like to know where you found this information.  In my experience
>> I have found that deer have good vision.  I have frightened more than
>> my fair share of deer with a small movement or a blink of the eyes.
>
Deduction.  Deer only have rod cells and peripheral vision.  Since these
provide low light level motion detection, it makes sense.  In any case,
it is well known that only birds match humans for detail vision.  Most
mammals can't see color, and since color cells (cones) are also the ones
responsible for detail vision, it is further evidenced that deer have 
eyesight much worse than humans.  They aren't practically blind like  
rhinos, but don't see anywhere near as well as we do. 

E.S.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals