White-Tailed Deer

## Description

The White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is a medium-sized deer native to the Americas where it is the most widely distributed wild ungulate. Texas is home to the most White-tailed deer of any U.S. state or Canadian province, with an estimated population of 5.3 million.

## Appearance

The coat of the White-tailed deer is a reddish-brown in the spring and summer and turns to a grey-brown throughout the fall and winter. The deer can be recognized by the characteristic white underside to its tail. It raises its tail when it is alarmed to warn the predator that it has been detected. An indication of a deer age is the length of the snout and the color of the coat, with older deer tending to have longer snouts and grayer coats. A population of white-tailed deer in New York is entirely white (except for areas like their noses and toes) - not albino - in color. White-tailed deer's horizontally slit pupils allow for good night vision and color vision during the day. Males regrow their antlers every year. Males without branching antlers are often termed "spikehorn", "spiked bucks", "spike bucks", or simply "spikes/spikers". The spikes can be quite long or very short. The length and branching of antlers are determined by nutrition, age, and genetics. Spiked bucks are different from "button bucks" or "nubbin' bucks", which are male fawns and are generally about 6 to 9 months of age during their first winter. They have skin-covered nobs on their heads. They can have bony protrusions up to a half inch in length, but that is very rare, and they are not the same as spikes. Males shed their antlers when all females have been bred, from late December to February.

## Distribution

White-tailed deer occur in most of southern Canada and all of the United States mainland except for a couple of western states. Their range covers the entire Mexico and Central America, reaching South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. White-tailed deer live in various habitats, from big woods in northern Maine to Florida's hammock swamps and deep saw grass. They can also be found in brushy areas, open prairie, savanna woodlands, montane mixed oak and pine woodland communities, tropical and subtropical dry and moist broadleaf forests, adjacent wetland habitats, riparian corridors, rainforests, grasslands, plains, mountains, farmlands, plantations, pasturelands, suburban and urban areas.

## Lifestyle

White-tailed deer are usually considered solitary, particularly in summer. Their basic social unit is mother and fawns, although sometimes they do graze together in herds that can number hundreds of individuals. Bucks and does remain separate from each other except during the mating season. Bucks usually live alone or within small groups alongside other bucks. Deer living in deserts often migrate from summertime elevations down to warmer areas where there is more food available. White-tailed deer are crepuscular, and mainly feed starting before dawn until a few hours after the sun has risen, and again in the late afternoon until dusk. They use a number of forms of communication, such as sound, odor, body language, and marking with scratches. When alarmed, a White-tailed deer will raise its tail to warn other deer.

## Diet

Whitetails are herbivores and feed on twigs, bark, leaves, shrubs, the nuts and fruits of most vegetation, lichens, and other fungi. Plants such as yucca, huajillo brush, prickly pear cactus, ratama, comal, and a range of tough shrubs can be the mainstay of a whitetail's diet if it lives in a desert area. Though almost entirely herbivorous, White-tailed deer may opportunistically feed on nesting songbirds, field mice, and birds trapped in mist nets, if the need arises.

## Reproduction

Whitetails are polygynous, and bucks fight fiercely during the mating season, with winners able to mate with does in the area. The season runs from October to December. The gestation period is about 6 months. A female usually gives birth to one fawn in her initial year of breeding but 2 are born subsequently. Fawns can walk as soon as they are born and only a few days later are able to nibble on vegetation. When seeking food, mothers leave their offspring hidden amongst vegetation. A fawn starts to follow its mother as she goes off to forage when it is about 4 weeks old. At 8 - 10 months old, they are weaned. At one-year-old, young males leave their mothers but young females will often stay with them for two years. Most of them (particularly males) will breed in their second year.

## Population

### Population threats

Being commonly hunted for sport and meat, and in Texas being the primary big game animals, White-tailed deer populations are threatened by overhunting. To the south of the US border deer face this same threat, along with habitat loss. Poaching is another cause of the extinction of local populations.

### Population number

According to the IUCN Red List, in the United States, the White-tailed deer population is estimated to be over 11,000,000 individuals, of which a third will be in the State of Texas. The estimated population in Canada is half a million individuals. Overall, currently, this species is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List and its numbers today are stable.

### Ecological niche

White-tailed deer can have a great influence on plant communities as a result of their grazing, particularly where they are abundant. These deer are also an important prey animal for many large predators.

## Fun Facts

When White-tailed deer gather together and trample down snow in a particular area, this is called a "deer yard."

White-tailed deer can jump vertically more than 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) and horizontally 9 meters (354 in), which is almost the length of a school bus.

White-tailed deer swim well and can escape from predators through large streams and lakes.

Only the males grow antlers, and they shed them each year.

White-tailed deer are the shyest and most nervous of deer. When they are startled and run away, their tails wave from side to side.

Deer can smell human odor on underbrush for days afterward. Bucks will stay away from areas that have been visited by humans for weeks afterward.

Bucks usually lie on their right side when they go to sleep, and they face downwind, enabling them to employ their nose, ears, and eyes to detect danger in any direction.