Deer Death In The Winter Woods

Late winter is not a pleasant time for the state's whitetail deer. Nature exacts her vicious toll during a harsh winter, and the competition between deer for food can be vicious.

The words "survival of the fittest" is an apt description of an adult doe and her offspring. I've watched does stomp their fawns into a bloodied, befuddled state.

Several years ago I watched deer on the move. They came  from all direction to feed behind my home. I had placed corn on the ground, since it was legal to do so then, spread it around, and the deer came every evening right at dark.

Mature does fight for winter food. Fawns can't survive such a battering as this.

The deer ate but there's nothing courteous about winter deer. This was Mother Nature hard at work, with each deer vying for the most food. They ate as much as possible, as quickly and greedily as possible, and weren't keen about sharing.

A doe, accompanied by twin fawns, began feeding. The doe fawn moved too close to her mother, and the older animal reared up on her hind legs and pummeled the hapless youngster before running the fawn off. So much for motherly love and sharing at the February dinner table.

It was hardly a Disney-like portrayal of Bambi and Mom. This was a realistic view of a deer's winter life. The doe fawn, weighing barely 40 pounds, moved away from her mother. She was bowed and bloodied from the attack. Ten minutes later she tried to feed near her young brother, and was viciously kicked by the slightly larger sibling.

It's called survival of the fittest. Did the doe fawn survive? It's doubtful.

The doe fawn was fuzzy-faced, with ribs and hip bones jutting out. Her lethargic movements doomed her to one of two deaths: a lingering death from starvation or a more rapid demise as coyotes would eat her alive. Which is worse? For the young fawn, the end result wpi;d be the same.

Fawns need nutritional food but many never get enough.

In some areas the browse is eaten away higher than most adult deer can reach. Fawns move from one spot to another in search of food, and should they get off a well-packed deer trail, they are too weak to crawl back through deep snow onto the trail and its relative safety.

Snow depths throughout most of the northern areas averages two feet in depth right now after our brief thaw, and the snow is much deeper in most of the Upper Peninsula.

It's merely a statement of fact: hard winters exact a horrible toll on whitetails. A bobcat or free-ranging pet dog can easily kill winter-weakened whitetails.

In years of deep snow, the animals have nowhere to go. The DNR used tp allow supplemental deer feeding. Not any more, and this stupid action and unwise DNR decisions have hurt our deer herd. That false-alarm CWD scare two years ago has hurt our deer herd. It will take quite some time for our deer herd to recover from the lack of supplemental feeding. And frankly, with out a beefed-up crew of Conservation Officers, it can be difficult to keep up with illegal baiting.

The CWD false alarm and a DNR knee-jerk reaction hurt state deer herd.

Deer need thermal cover to break the wind and provide warm cover, but year after year they return to the same over-browsed deer yards, and most years the winter starvation rate can be incredibly high.

This little spike buck might not make it through the winter.

The most vulnerable deer right now are adult bucks and fawns. An adult buck will lose 25-30 percent of its body fat and weight during the rut, and unless the weather moderates enough to allow them to stockpile body fat, they can die early.

Fawns must compete with their mothers and other larger deer for food, and when the going gets tough, fawn and older bucks start dying.

Starving deer often start feeding on browse that lacks any nutritional value. The sad fact is that winter whitetails often die with a full belly, and it is a slow, wasting death. Survival means being mean, being big enough to reach enough browse to make it through the winter, and looking out for No. 1.

The fawns have to fend for themselves, and the death toll mounts in February and March. It's too bad but it's Nature's way.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors