I thought Id' run a series of articles on White-tailed Deer, since it is why several of my readers have logged on to this blog. This series will run intermittently from now until the deer hunting season opens. Hopefully it will help some of you in your hunting efforts this fall. I've spent 10 years researching whitetails, and twice that long hunting them.
This article is an excerpt from the book "The Complete Whiteatil Addict's Manual", b y T.R. Michels
The White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is the most populous of America's deer species. There are 30 recognized subspecies of whitetails occurring in North, Central and South America, with 17 subspecies in the United States. Five of these subspecies are limited populations on islands off the southeastern coastal regions. Whitetails inhabit all of the lower 48 states; with limited populations in Nevada, Utah and California. They also inhabit all of the Canadian Provinces except the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. They inhabit all of Central America, with the exception of the Baja Peninsula. They also inhabit the northern areas of South America.
The whitetails of North America range in size from the large Northern woodland (O. v. borealis), Dakota (O. v. dakotensis), Northwest (O. v. ochrorus) subspecies of the northern states and Canada; to the small Florida Key (O. v. clavium) of the Florida Keys, Carmen Mountains or Fantail (O. v. carmenis) and the Coues (O. v. couesi) subspecies of Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. The Columbian (O. v. leucurus) of Washington, and the Key (O. v. clavium) subspecies were both on the Endangered Species List in 1989. The largest whitetail ever recorded was shot in 1926 by Carl J. Lenander in Minnesota. It weighed 402 pounds field dressed, with an estimated live weight of 511 pounds. Several deer with live weights estimated in excess of 400 pounds have come from Iowa, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Haitat
The whitetail is primarily an animal of deciduous hardwood forests, preferring secluded wooded areas as security and daytime core areas and bedding sites. However, they have adapted to coniferous zones in the southeast, north and west; swamps of the southeast, south and north; prairie regions in the south and west; agricultural lands; and suburban habitat and metropolitan areas.
Forage
All deer species belong to the Suborder Ruminatia, which means they are ruminants, they eat their food and store it in one of their stomachs, and later regurgitate it and chew their cud to continue digestion. The result of this is that they feed heavily for a couple of hours in the morning or evening, and generally lie down to chew their cud later. Deer are considered browsers; animals that eat forbes, herbs, and shoots and small branches of woody plants. They also eat grasses, sedges, fruits of wild and domestic plants and vegetables; and new growth leaves, stems, and grains of agricultural crops. They take advantage of any abundant crop in their area but often use several different food sources daily.
