Wildlife & Nature
When Deer Disappear
Leonard Lee Rue III, American Hunter January 1994

     Many gun hunters are convinced that deer watch the calendar as
closely as we do, that deer are as keenly aware of the opening day
of the hunting season as we are.
     In autumn, and perhaps even in the summer, hunters scout out
their hunting territories and often see lots of deer. Hunters will
come back to check on the deer, their movements, their patterns,
their food sources, etc. But when opening day arrives, it's a
different ball game. The deer disappear. It's only logical. The
deer are reacting to hunting pressure.
     For 21 years I was chief gamekeeper for the Coventry Hunt
Club. Totaling 6,800 acres, it was the largest private hunt club in
New Jersey. I know those acres intimately because I walked them, I
posted their borders, I patrolled them, and I hunted them. Based on
personal observations and frequent nighttime spotlighting censuses,
I estimated that we had 300 to 400 deer on the property, or about
30 deer to the square mile. That was far too many deer for the land
to support, but that was before we were allowed to hunt does.
     The land was bordered on the west by the Delaware River and on
the east by the Blue Ridge section of the Appalachian Mountains.
Only one road ran the full length of the valley. A much shorter
second road paralleled the main road at the northern end of the
property. Almost half of the length of the property between the
main road and the river contained extremely productive cornfields.
Most of our deer would come down from the mountains to feed on the
corn every afternoon and then retire to the nearby knolls in the
early morning to spend the day. They didn't go up on the mountain
(except in late September to feed upon the acorns) because they
didn't have to. Only 63 people lived in the entire township, with
only about forty on the area embraced by the club. It was a quiet,
peaceful, tranquil area.
     Until deer season.
     During deer season the club tried to reduce the herd by
allowing up to 200 hunters in the valley. That worked out to about
one hunter every 34 acres. Counting the no-hunting areas around the
homes, around the three camps, and on the one refuge, which
deducted perhaps 500 acres, it still worked out to one hunter every
31 acres. That's still a lot of land per person. And that is
assuming that the hunters were spread out all over the land which,
of course, they weren't.
     All year long, traffic along the main road was minimal. On
opening day, in addition to the regular traffic, an additional 100
cars, more or less, would suddenly pile into the valley. The
tremendous increase in traffic noise, the slamming of car doors,
the loud talking and bantering, and the night-piercing flashlights
scared the living bejesus out of the deer, and they promptly took
off for the top of the mountain or the refuge. Those deer didn't
need a calendar--they were reacting to hunting pressure. Most
successful hunters quietly slipped into the mountain before the
hordes arrived, and were in position to intercept the deer on their
way to the top.
     Deer are no different than we are. If at all possible, they
follow trails to the top. So knowledgeable hunters use the same
stands year after year, because deer use the same trails. Then, by
driving the ridges, hunters can push some of the deer back down to
the lowland.
     Our buckshot gun season used to be six days long, starting on
a Monday morning. Monday saw the heaviest hunting pressure. Tuesday
had less than one-half the pressure of Monday. Wednesday, Thursday,
and Friday mornings were usually very quiet, but the action would
pick up on Friday afternoon. Saturday was about as busy as Monday,
except that hunters who had already taken their bucks were not
there.
     On Monday night none of the deer came off the mountain to
feed. They stayed hidden in the rhododendron swamps during daylight
hours and fed on the mountain at night. On Tuesday and Wednesday
nights some deer would sneak into the cornfields about 9 p.m. to
feed, but they would move back after midnight. On Thursday some of
the deer were bold enough to come down at dusk. The increased
hunting pressure on Friday and Saturday kept all the deer on the
mountain, and it wasn't until midweek, when there was no pressure
at all, that they resumed pre-hunt patterns.
     Bow hunting was not nearly as popular then as it is now, and
there were only 30 to 35 bowhunters in the club. The bowhunters
were scattered more widely, came and went more quietly, and, in
general, did not disturb the deer to any noticeable extent.
     Al Hofacker and his associates at Deer and Deer Hunting
corroborated my observations in an in-depth study for that magazine
in 1983. Hunters participating in the survey logged a grand total
of 33,027 hours of field observations. They turned up much good
factual data, but of interest here is the fact that bowhunters saw
nearly three times as many deer as did gun hunters. Actually,
bowhunters observed 35.14 deer per 100 hours in the field while gun
hunters saw only 17.59 deer per 100 hours. Which all means that
although bowhunters spent more time in the field, they disturbed
the deer far less and they saw more deer, because the deer were not
feeling hunting pressure.
     I mentioned that a number of deer retired to our one refuge at
the first disturbance. I must also mention that many deer never, or
very seldom, left the refuge, in which there was a 60- to 70-acre
piece of grassland and woodland in the center of two very long
cornfields. The woodland patch was about 50 feet higher than the
lower cornfield, so any deer Iying in the woods could watch the
entire field below. There was no reason for deer to leave this
area, but some did anyway.
     Kathy Etling, in a recent issue of Outdoor Life, reported on
a research project just completed by the Missouri Department of
Conservation dealing with deer usage on a refuge. Using telemetry,
they followed the activity of 24 deer over a two-year period. They
found that bucks traveled an average of five miles a day before
hunting season, but cut it to four miles per day during hunting
season.
     It has long been known that more deer escape by Iying still
and letting a hunter walk by them than by running off. Depending on
the amount of pressure, bucks might only move under the cover of
darkness. And I am firmly convinced that the really big trophy
bucks l only move in the dark, even during the rut, whether it is
hunting season or not. Those big bucks avoid encountering humans at
any time, and they won't move during the day unless pushed.
     The researchers found that bucks whose home range included
parts of a refuge would move into the refuge at the first sign of
disturbance, leaving it only at night. The big difference with our
bucks is that those who entered the refuge usually stayed there for
the week. I must also add that our hunting season opened between
December 5 and 12, so the bulk of the breeding season was over and
there was little reason for them to leave the safety of the refuge.
     The Missouri study concluded that most deer stayed in their
home range areas, particularly the does. That is to be expected,
because does have an average home range of only one to two square
miles. If the does' range does not include part of a refuge, they
won't even know that it's there. And the last thing a deer wants to
do is leave the familiarity of its home range. If a deer is driven
from its home range during the daytime, you can bet it will return
after dark. Only on its home range does a deer feel safe. And it is
safer there, despite hunting pressure, because it intimately knows
the areas in which it can hide.
     I have always said that you don't drive deer, you just stir
them up. They go where they want to. Most deer can't be driven from
their home range. They stay hidden, allowing drivers to walk by. Or
they will wait until the last moment and run back through the
drivers.
     I have always preferred to stand hunt for deer. But I believe
silent drivers have the best success. When drivers make a lot of
noise, deer know exactly where the drivers are.
     How do deer respond to hunting pressure? By doing whatever it
takes to avoid hunters.
