Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
sure. As soon as the certainty of danger sets in, the deer usually bolts, although it may run a short dis-
tance, pause, and snort over and over for a number of minutes.
Anyone unfamiliar with this sound can readily approximate it. First jut the lower jaw forward to cre-
ate a narrow opening in the mouth. Then expel your breath with explosive force against the back of
the upper teeth and use your diaphragm to maximize the amount and velocity of breath being expelled.
Every effort should also be made to pitch this sound as high as possible. The result, at least with a little
practice, should give a fair idea of what a blowing whitetail sounds like.
The bleat of a hungry fawn has already been described, and I've also heard a fawn with its mother
make a little squeaking sound, almost like the sound of creaking saddle leather. Does bleat also, and
can on occasion make a louder sound. One night, just as my wife was about to turn into our driveway,
a doe leaped off our lawn, landed on the hood of the car, rolled off, and galloped away unhurt—but not
before she expressed her dismay with a loud BAAAAA!
Bucks, in addition to the snorts that all whitetails use, also grunt in a guttural fashion, not unlike a
pig, although the sound doesn't carry as far. In particular, a buck hot on the scent of a doe in heat will
often utter a series of what's known as “tending grunts.”
The past four hundred years have given the white-tailed deer a strange rollercoaster ride. From great
abundance in a land of primeval forests, hunted by wolves and cougars with some human predation
thrown in, they soon dwindled to a tiny fraction of their former numbers in a land changed beyond re-
cognition. Gone were most of the forests, gone were the wolves and cougars, replaced by a flood of
human predators.
Then the tide turned. Forests returned, and the human predators that had once decimated the deer
now helped to restore them. Up, up went the deer again, to superabundance undreamed of a century be-
fore. No longer merely numerous, they now present a problem of excessive population in many areas.
Beyond sheer numbers, they've become interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives in ways ranging
from things as prosaic as dollars and cents to emotional and aesthetic meanings too deep to fathom.
As the most visible and important proof of restored wildlife, and as a symbol of the wildness which so
many of us treasure, the white-tailed deer surely deserves the title of the Comeback Kid.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search