Posted on 10/23/2017 4:28:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Darwin is at work out there in the wild, where some way, somehow, deer, especially the big bucks, seem to know when it is deer season.
For most of Northern California, that is now. In a sign of the times, field scout Tom Hesseldenz stopped at a crosswalk last weekend, the opening of deer season, in order to allow a trophy buck, a 4x4 black-tailed deer, to stroll right past the front of his car.
“I couldn’t believe it, right in front of me,” Hesseldenz said. “I pulled out my phone and took the picture.”
In the photo, you can see how the deer is walking across the street between the white lines that mark the crosswalk.
From the Marin Headlands, a panorama of the town of Mendocino, often a sunny paradise in fall Mendocino: Fall’s sunny side of paradise Perry Norris, executive director of Truckee Donner Land Trust, looks out on to the meadows of Carpenter Valley near Truckee Calif. Wednesday, September 6, 2017. World-class adventures abound on the Sierra’s western slopes A rare California long-tailed weasel appeared in the courtyard at the
Hesseldenz is a landscape architect, the former director of the organization Cal Trout, and is responsible for leading crews to build some of the best trails in Northern California. In the past month, he said he’s been working a job in the north state in Yreka, and sighted the big buck walking across Main Street, of all places.
These kinds of encounters are becoming more common. More than anything, the deer seem to know the safe zones. That includes golf courses, parks, RV campgrounds, open space, inside the city limits of rural towns and the backyards of those with a little acreage.
Many deer also now spend their entire lives in a 5-mile radius, often in areas where there is no hunting, according to a GPS collar study by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. These deer can seem like a newly evolving species, “The Black-tailed Domesticated Deer,” nearly tame and comfortable around people. Most hunters, who pledge fair chase in the wilds of the mountains, have no interest in them.
For the most part, the once great, mass migrations of the large, wild herds, from the high Sierra Nevada to the foothills above the Central Valley, are gone, blocked by highways with no passage and expanding cities. That’s what happens in a state that has grown to 39.5 million people and counting.
Even then, within the wild stocks in remote areas with little contact from people, the deer somehow know when hunting season is afoot.
One year, before the mountain deer season started, my two boys, Jeremy and Kris, made several trips to scout the prospects. They traced out game trails to find where deer were bedding down, drinking and feeding. They then intercepted many deer on these routes to learn their patterns, and on the Friday before the season started, sighted a giant buck with 5x5 antlers.
The next day, opening day, that deer vanished. Each day that followed, there was no sign of it, not even a mark. The big ones, for instance, will leave marks in the dirt from the tips of their antlers when they feed. Without ever seeing the deer, you can then measure the distance between the tip marks in the dirt to gauge the spread and get an idea of how big the antlers are.
Seconded! :-)
Cougars are apparently working there way around and down from the west by going above the upper Missouri River. A warden shot one in KY a year or so ago I heard. Once they get a hold east of the Mississippi they will explode from the deer numbers there!
There are Elk transplants in VA and NC that are apparently doing well. We always had gobs of bears in VA, they’d occasionally wander through JMU campus there when I was in school in 80’s.
Oh, and the American Chestnut has been crossbred with Asian ones and then back to true stock with blight resistance! Truly an epic tree and one of the greatest ecological disasters of American history. I believe you can get non cross, and by now possibly crossed ones, from the American chestnut society.
One of the guys that hunted at our VA cabin found one that reached burr bearing stage about 10 years back. They sprout from stump areas like redwoods, but they always blighted back.
Necessity is the mother of invention as they say! I have the same problem in my neck of the woods, too.
Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me to be on or off . And ping me is you see articles of interest.
And yet, they go bounding in front of people’s vehicles, causing injurious accidents. Their application of their intelligence is, shall we say, selective.
Just out of camera range there’s a sign that says “deer crossing”.......Just happens to be another thread on that very topic.
“Their application of their intelligence is, shall we say, selective.”
I suspect that their vision, hearing and reactions are programmed by millions of years of evolution. They have not adapted either their sight, hearing or reactions to account for vehicles moving at thirty-plus miles per hour.
A old friend of mine had a garden, she said off season the deer ate her garden. In season they left it alone. The boundary line for hunting was the edge of her garden.
Many years ago my husband worked at the Lawrence Radiation Lab in the hills behind UC Berkeley. The day before opening day every year, all the deer from the surrounding area would migrate to the grounds of the Rad Lab where they were safe from hunters.
Is that where Rudolf recharged his batteries?
I dunno. Everything was top secret there! :)
FR needs a Like button like face book
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