Lots of deer out this pass Friday afternoon. Where do they.

...go during hunting season? I counted 25 deer yesterday after noon on my way home. 10 in one field and 15 more just 5 mins away. In the spring time you see large herds of them, but during hunting season you see smaller bands why is that? 3 years ago during the spring I counted 45 deer on one field.

Have any of you seen large herds lately?

i know that the deer congragate together in the spring like that because once a few deer find good feed in a field the rest of the deer in the area will follow to the good feeding areas after a hard winter,, thus putting herds of them out there, and at night it doubles.

It has to do with different behavior for the seasons. During the winter deer tend to bunch up to find food etc. and just to socialize. As food sources and relationships change (e.g., fawns grow up) so does the behavior. Of course, in the fall, the rut is on and that changes a lot of things--relationships, wariness. Also, having hunters poking about can change where deer might be and their behavior.

Saw 13 mulie bucks in one group this Jan, in Sask. Some of very nice size. Also saw hundreds of antelope. The most bucks I saw in one group and not one doe. That was in the Great Sandhills area.

im no biologist, but i would like to think that there are places in the spring that simply have better food quality or are easier to get to now that the snow is gone.
or the winter feeding areas that held them are slim pickens now.
the group gets bigger as other deer smell the pellets of other deer and determine food supplies and follow those tracks to the 'good' food. so the good feilds tend to pull in deer from a larger area
i have 10-40 whites here feeding 1000 yards from the house every nite

Yes, they certainly can bunch up. Approxmately 6 weeks ago Dad said there were roughly 130 deer feeding in this firld close to his place. The most he has ever seen in one group and he's lived their all his life. I wonder how far they travel to bunch up like that?

I saw a group of 100 whitetails yesterday walking the dogs....but I can find groups of 50-60 during the season no prob as well.....

Deer definatly do bunch up more in the winter....its just habit and feed issues I think more than anything...

The reason you see more deer together in winter and early spring is because of "yarding up". This year more of them got together (yard up) because of the heavier than usual snows. This makes travel back and forth from feed to bed easier (they pack the trails down). You really see the impact of this yarding phenoma (sp?) more around the great lakes where they tremendous snows. I guess it is a survival behaviour. In about a month they will separate again in anticipation of fawning. BL

BL awsome information i never heard that before but it makes perfect sense in abundant areas,hence the reason they always take the same trail in and around to the feeding areas,easier on the smaller deer like the two year olds too.

If there is a bioligist here, could you please tell me if this makes it a higher risk for CWD. I hate to even bring it up but it did just come to mind.

I'm a marine biologist lol. I save whales from errant golf balls I used to be an architect......anyway deer and whales are the same thing... One sick whale or one sick deer in a crowd and guess what? They all get sick...

George

That's what I fiqured.

Well we have 17 confirmed CWD deer now in Alberta....it was 3 not to long ago....0 at one time. There is no doubt large groups in the CWD areas.

Some of you are south where it seems to be a little less snow and a little more warth, therefore would that help in making larger groups as well? Here in the Edmonton area (or at least where I live) I seem to see more deer at this time of the season clean into May, but durning the coldest times of the winter I see small groups or hardly any deer at all.

During the dead of winter the deer are located where they don't have to move very much between beds and feed, that means quite often in solid bush where it is out of the wind and blowing snow. Conservation of energy. BL