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.
Dove also know when its dove season as well. LOL
LOL! Must be a “Deer Crossing” sign there.
Turkeys are pretty much the same. It’s amazing how these dumb birds are able to consult the calendar and vanish.
Rats with antlers. Kill ‘em all and put them in a stew.
I live on six wooded acres backed by some state forest land around Lake Talquin for which there is not only no public access, it’s so densely wooded I can’t even walk through most of it. For most of the year there are few deer here as there is little to no grass. But during deer season, they are practically wall-to-wall. I see them in daylight. They consume every bit of grass around my house and leave churned up tracks everywhere. As soon as deer season is over, they leave. Don’t tell me they don’t understand hunting season and where there won’t be any hunters.
We have wild turkeys in my suburban neighborhood, like overgrown pigeons. I never was able to find them in areas you could hunt them, but they’re all over the Sacramento burbs..
I am so glad to know DNA is continuing to evolve, at least among deer. I have not one doubt at all that it is not, absolutely not doing the same in humans.
Maybe hunting season should change every year, like Ramadan?
the animals would still know, I believe. LOL
We lived on three wooded acres in Southeastern Pa, Dad had no hunting signs posted. Sure enough the deer would come. I remember waking up on hunting season Saturday to the sounds of gunfire. Lol
“Maybe hunting season should change every year, like Ramadan?’
I keep offering to my “hunting” buddies to come on over and sit on my porch. They can use the bathroom, the refrigerator, the spare bed. Just cut me in for some sausages! What a bunch of wimps. I don’t have a deer rifle and no desire to look my meat in the eye. (I prefer seeing it in its natural habitat, a Styrofoam package.) My neighbor’s husband used to sit on his back porch in his wheelchair with a few beers. He kept their freezer so stocked that his wife was still using meat he’d shot a year after he died.
That is EXACTLY how it was for us when we had our rural TN property. The man who owned the property before us was an avid hunter and the deer disappeared during hunting season. We bought the place and posted around the perimeter. Starting from the first day of deer season they were everywhere. We’d have 12 - 15 in the back yard at one time.
I want to hunt ‘Spyglass Hill’ golf course.
The Bucks are so big you think they are Mulies, giant animals.
On one of the greens they just lay there while you putt.
Thinking they know they are safe.
I think they just get stuck in a rut.
“I want to hunt ‘Spyglass Hill’ golf course”
You’ll want to use the shootin’iron.
More than anything, the deer seem to know the safe zones.........
Like my 3 acre field next to the road.Once they leave that there invisible
“Kill ‘em all”.
Not necessarily but, helps in understanding your screen name
Same here! Bucks and does litter the road dead in their rut craze now, can’t remember what traffic is for these 6wks.
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