103
Harvest & Holiday 2013
Escarpment Magazine
The graceful white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus
is well
known to most North Americans. Hunters and nonhunters alike recognize the animal
by its habit of flourishing its tail over its back, revealing a stark white underside and white
buttocks. This "flag" of the white-tailed deer is often glimpsed as the high spirited animal
dashes away from people. The tail has a broad base and is almost a foot long. When
lowered, it is brown with a white fringe.
In summer, the white-tailed deer has a reddish pelage, or fur, on its back and sides and
is whitish beneath. In winter the upper parts turn greyish. Full grown male deer frequently
exceed 1 m at shoulder height and 110 kg in weight, with exceptional individuals
weighing up to 200 kg in the northern part of their range. The antlers of the mature male
white-tail consist of a forward curving main beam from which single points project up-
ward and often slightly inward. Perhaps one of every 1,000 females also bears small,
simple antlers.
The white-tailed deer is hard to distinguish from the black-tailed deer. The black-tail has
similar an tlers and will sometimes show the characteristic "flag" of the white-tail but usu-
ally with less flare. Fortunately, for identification purposes, the black-tailed deer occurs
only west of the Great Divide (its Canadian range is coastal B.C. and Vancouver Island),
where the white-tailed deer is uncommon.
Confusion is less likely between the white-tailed deer and the darker stockier mule deer.
The mule deer can be distinguished by a small white tail with a black tip and antlers that
divide and redivide into paired beams and points. It also has large ears that are more
like those of a mule than those of its more delicate cousin. Unfortunately people in dif-
ferent parts of Canada have given these two types of deer the same nickname, "jumper."
In the Prairies the mule deer is dubbed "jumper," in recognition of its stiff-legged bounc-
ing gait. Elsewhere people may mean the white-tail when they use the term, referring to
that animal’s irregular jumping gallop when alarmed.
Habitats and Habits...
Abundant food makes almost any forested or bushy area suitable
for white-tailed deer during the summer, but as snow deepens the deer concentrate in
"deer yards," or areas that provide food and shelter from storms and deep snow. Some-
times the move from summer to winter range requires travelling many kilometres.
The doe leaves her fawn unattended for hours at a time. When the fawn remains bed-
ded, the natural camouflage of its spotted coat and its almost scentless condition effec-
tively conceal it from predators. The doe returns at intervals to suckle the fawn. People
sometimes chance to find fawns in their secluded hiding places and mistakenly believe
they have been deserted by their mothers. In fact, a doe will rarely desert her fawn, and
the little animals should not be touched. Human scent on the fawn may cause the doe
to desert it.
Of all North America’s large animals, the white-tailed deer is the most widely distributed
and the most numerous. Its range extends from the southern tip of the continent north-
ward well into the boreal, or northern coniferous, forest. Scattered individuals occur as
far north as Great Slave Lake. In southern Canada, the white-tailed deer can be found
fromCape Breton Island westward to south-central British Columbia. There were at least
15 million white-tails in Canada and the United States in 1982. Average densities
throughout its range exceeded three deer per square kilometre.
*
These graceful animals are
the most widely distributed
and the most numerous of
all North America’s
large animals
"White-tailed Deer," accessed August 13
th
2013,
© Hinterland Who's Who
. Reprinted with permission.
