Deers (Cervidae family) Info, Pictures and Videos

[Spalea]

Michele Bavassano: " "Morning Lights"
A moment during my last photography workshop in the Abruzzo National Park. We lived unforgettable moments while we observed this and other splendid deer immersed in the water of the lake. I think these animals are the most elegant. Watching them as they walk, as they fight, always leaves me speechless. "

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[Rishi]

Last of the swamp deers in west of Gangetic basin. There was a time, when most of the Indian plain looked like this.

*This image is copyright of its original author

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[Spalea]

Savannah Burgess: " The Charge. November 25, 2019 ... "

Savannah Burgess: " It’s almost that time of the year! ? This photo was taken on September 10th of 2019. Can’t wait to see these big boys rumbling again. "

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[Spalea]

Daniel Lindhardt: " When you’re the biggest dude around, but not really interested in trying to mate with the same female as everyone else, the best thing to do is take a nap and wait for the right female to come along. "

Universal wisdom... Reply

[Balam]

White tails grazing in the Llanos marsh

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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Jabiru Tours Reply

[BA0701]

@Balam 

"I agree with Potato's critique about the analogy concerning white tailed deer. One of the reasons why there is such a big imbalance of prey-predator populations in North America has a lot to do with the human-caused extirpation of wolves and mountain lions in many areas where white tailed deer can be plentiful.

The argument that many hunters use to justify the culling of deer has no bearing on reality as nature has systems set in place to regulate said populations naturally. Ironically, those same arguments for culling ungulates are also used by the same hunters to justify the slaughter of cougars across North America, claiming that they are reducing the population of deer and elk, as though that wasn't their role in the ecosystem in the first place.

North America was certainly much more balance in terms of mammalian populations prior to the arrival of European settlers. Any disparity in the numbers of herbivores and carnivores across the continent is the fault of human intervention and nothing else. This same concept can be applied with Kruger and other nature reserves in Africa. As painful as it might seem, it's better sometimes to let nature take its course and balance itself out."

Having actively hunted whitetail for at least 43 years, and having spent a tremendous amount of time speaking with wildlife biologists in regards to proper whitetail herd management, a couple of things I see in your comments that I should address. First one being the implication that the human destruction of predators, namely wolves and cougars is the cause of out of control deer populations. Thankfully we have some areas that we can specifically look at. The first specific area being a small area in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, called Cade's Cove. Cade's Cove is a 7 mile loop in the National Park, and it is an area known for the ability to see so much of the wildlife contained in East Tennessee. It is an area often used for wildlife studies because the populations are so dense due to the lack of human hunting pressure. My wife and I often take friends and family through there, when they are here for a visit, and on those visits sights of whitetail, black bear, and countless other species are a regular part of these trips. Having spoken to several of the Rangers in the park on numerous occasions due to my interests on the subject, they explained to me that legal hunting was stopped inside of Cade's Cove in the late 1950s to early 1960s. As a result of this, the natural fear of man is nearly entirely absent in all of these animals, thus you are able to get incredible photographs and videos that you'd likely be unable to get many other places that are still entirely wild, and it provides you an opportunity to get extremely close to these animals, often dangerously so.

As these Rangers have explained to me, on several occasions beginning in the early 1980s and continuing into the early 2000s, deer had to be removed from the herd because the bear were simply unable to cull enough on their own. During these times the health of the herd has dropped significantly, due in large part to the lack of available natural resources. These culling events came in the form of targeted hunts performed by the government, as well as relocation programs where deer were moved to other public lands. Talks of such events, as explained to me, typically begin when large numbers of underweight animals are observed, and they begin finding higher than normal numbers of sick and dying animals from disease and starvation. These Rangers have explained to me directly that the bear, coyote, and bobcat populations are simply unable to maintain a health deer herd by themselves.

Having myself, spent tremendous amounts of time hunting deer in Florida, where I grew up, as well as many years spent hunting on a privately owned 3500 contiguous acres piece of property in south east South Carolina, and other states like Wisconsin and Tennessee to name a few. During this time, I witnessed event such as a doe stomping a spike buck to death, as well as fawns which were taken by coyotes and bobcats. Seeing a mound of dirt with a fawn's legs sticking out of it (bobcat storage of the day's meal), is something that will forever be interesting. This was when I learned that doe can be equally aggressive, and often more so, to bucks when trying to maintain claim on an area. The land owner hired a biologist to tell us every year how many of each type of deer (doe and bucks) should be taken off of the property (this number changed from year to year), based on annual food resources which is obviously affected by naturally occurring weather patterns and other natural phenomena, and I also spent quite a bit of time in the company of and exchanging emails and phone calls with, a biologist who worked for the Mossy Oak property in Georgia, one of, if not the, largest privately owned deer reserves in the US. My purpose was to learn the methods of implementing a proper QDMA program on our property, with our goal being the healthiest deer herd would could maintain. All of the areas I have been involved with, namely FL, GA, and SC, and to a lesser extend Tennessee. currently lack the natural predatory threat to maintain a healthy deer herd. Obviously I cannot speak to the existence of such threats literal centuries ago, when the European settlers arrived, but for all my years on this Earth the numbers of cougars and bears in Florida have been incredibly low, certainly not enough to allow the maintenance of a healthy state wide deer herd. In fact I have never seen a cougar in the wilds of Florida, and only seen two black bears, and I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in those woods and swamps. As well, the numbers of such predators such as black bear, has not been adequate enough for these purposes in states I also have experience in such as Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, during my lifetime, and cougars have not existed in these locations in centuries, if they ever did at all.

So, as I was told directly by Rangers of the Smoky Mountains National Park, and as I have experienced throughout my life, without man's involvement, including state and federal governments, a healthy deer herd would be much more difficult to maintain. As for the "excuses" used by hunters, either for the culling of deer or predators, I believe your comments are disingenuous at best, as nothing of the sort has ever been claimed by myself or anyone I have associated with, and it certainly contradicts my life's experiences. Your comments about nature's ability to maintain proper herd densities were perhaps pertinent to the discussion centuries ago, but given the landscape we currently find ourselves in, perhaps to a much lesser extent today. For all of the biologists I have interacted with over many years, not one single time have I ever heard claims like the ones you are making, not once. Reply

[Balam]

(12-06-2020, 09:17 AM)BA0701 Wrote: @Balam 

"I agree with Potato's critique about the analogy concerning white tailed deer. One of the reasons why there is such a big imbalance of prey-predator populations in North America has a lot to do with the human-caused extirpation of wolves and mountain lions in many areas where white tailed deer can be plentiful.

The argument that many hunters use to justify the culling of deer has no bearing on reality as nature has systems set in place to regulate said populations naturally. Ironically, those same arguments for culling ungulates are also used by the same hunters to justify the slaughter of cougars across North America, claiming that they are reducing the population of deer and elk, as though that wasn't their role in the ecosystem in the first place.

North America was certainly much more balance in terms of mammalian populations prior to the arrival of European settlers. Any disparity in the numbers of herbivores and carnivores across the continent is the fault of human intervention and nothing else. This same concept can be applied with Kruger and other nature reserves in Africa. As painful as it might seem, it's better sometimes to let nature take its course and balance itself out."

Having actively hunted whitetail for at least 43 years, and having spent a tremendous amount of time speaking with wildlife biologists in regards to proper whitetail herd management, a couple of things I see in your comments that I should address. First one being the implication that the human destruction of predators, namely wolves and cougars is the cause of out of control deer populations. Thankfully we have some areas that we can specifically look at. The first specific area being a small area in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, called Cade's Cove. Cade's Cove is a 7 mile loop in the National Park, and it is an area known for the ability to see so much of the wildlife contained in East Tennessee. It is an area often used for wildlife studies because the populations are so dense due to the lack of human hunting pressure. My wife and I often take friends and family through there, when they are here for a visit, and on those visits sights of whitetail, black bear, and countless other species are a regular part of these trips. Having spoken to several of the Rangers in the park on numerous occasions due to my interests on the subject, they explained to me that legal hunting was stopped inside of Cade's Cove in the late 1950s to early 1960s. As a result of this, the natural fear of man is nearly entirely absent in all of these animals, thus you are able to get incredible photographs and videos that you'd likely be unable to get many other places that are still entirely wild, and it provides you an opportunity to get extremely close to these animals, often dangerously so.

As these Rangers have explained to me, on several occasions beginning in the early 1980s and continuing into the early 2000s, deer had to be removed from the herd because the bear were simply unable to cull enough on their own. During these times the health of the herd has dropped significantly, due in large part to the lack of available natural resources. These culling events came in the form of targeted hunts performed by the government, as well as relocation programs where deer were moved to other public lands. Talks of such events, as explained to me, typically begin when large numbers of underweight animals are observed, and they begin finding higher than normal numbers of sick and dying animals from disease and starvation. These Rangers have explained to me directly that the bear, coyote, and bobcat populations are simply unable to maintain a health deer herd by themselves.

Having myself, spent tremendous amounts of time hunting deer in Florida, where I grew up, as well as many years spent hunting on a privately owned 3500 contiguous acres piece of property in south east South Carolina, and other states like Wisconsin and Tennessee to name a few. During this time, I witnessed event such as a doe stomping a spike buck to death, as well as fawns which were taken by coyotes and bobcats. Seeing a mound of dirt with a fawn's legs sticking out of it (bobcat storage of the day's meal), is something that will forever be interesting. This was when I learned that doe can be equally aggressive, and often more so, to bucks when trying to maintain claim on an area. The land owner hired a biologist to tell us every year how many of each type of deer (doe and bucks) should be taken off of the property (this number changed from year to year), based on annual food resources which is obviously affected by naturally occurring weather patterns and other natural phenomena, and I also spent quite a bit of time in the company of and exchanging emails and phone calls with, a biologist who worked for the Mossy Oak property in Georgia, one of, if not the, largest privately owned deer reserves in the US. My purpose was to learn the methods of implementing a proper QDMA program on our property, with our goal being the healthiest deer herd would could maintain. All of the areas I have been involved with, namely FL, GA, and SC, and to a lesser extend Tennessee. currently lack the natural predatory threat to maintain a healthy deer herd. Obviously I cannot speak to the existence of such threats literal centuries ago, when the European settlers arrived, but for all my years on this Earth the numbers of cougars and bears in Florida have been incredibly low, certainly not enough to allow the maintenance of a healthy state wide deer herd. In fact I have never seen a cougar in the wilds of Florida, and only seen two black bears, and I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in those woods and swamps. As well, the numbers of such predators such as black bear, has not been adequate enough for these purposes in states I also have experience in such as Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, during my lifetime, and cougars have not existed in these locations in centuries, if they ever did at all.

So, as I was told directly by Rangers of the Smoky Mountains National Park, and as I have experienced throughout my life, without man's involvement, including state and federal governments, a healthy deer herd would be much more difficult to maintain. As for the "excuses" used by hunters, either for the culling of deer or predators, I believe your comments are disingenuous at best, as nothing of the sort has ever been claimed by myself or anyone I have associated with, and it certainly contradicts my life's experiences. Your comments about nature's ability to maintain proper herd densities were perhaps pertinent to the discussion centuries ago, but given the landscape we currently find ourselves in, perhaps to a much lesser extent today. For all of the biologists I have interacted with over many years, not one single time have I ever heard claims like the ones you are making, not once.

Some of the points you mentioned here went making the lines of my critique regarding human involvement in the predator-prey dynamics I mentioned of North America. 

For example, Tennessee has been completed voided of cougars for over a century now, and cougars and wolves are the main predators of deer. Bear are certainly capable of hunting them but they aren't obligated carnivores and killing animals comes off to them as more of a opportunistic feat rather than regular occurrence they ought to do to survive. This is why bears are not efficient when it comes to reducing the number of ungulates of an area, and a similar example of this can be seen in Yellowstone. Prior to the reintroduction of wolves the number of black and grizzly bears in the park remained considerable, but that didn't stop elk from multiplying and over populating the area. They had very little active predatory pressure.

In the case where a keystone carnivore like cougars of wolves have been extirpated it makes sense to need hunters to help cull the numbers of the herbivores these carnivores would hunt to keep them from overpopulating, but this is exactly why I think that the human involvement in the ecology of much of North America has severely damaged plenty of ecosystems that historically where in perfect balance. And unfortunately, many of the interests that play a role in the imbalance forementioned want to keep it that way as traditions and a string industry of hunting remains strong in much of North America.

If hunters use claims of predators reducing the number of ungulates of an area to kill them, then that shows you that in practical terms they care very little about the health and balances of the ecosistem, and rather want to continue a practice that may be more cultural to them and that supports a large industry in many states. 

I could go and on about this subject, but my overall point can be summarized in that the "need" to hunt animals like deer in North America has an anthropogenic background and has little to do with the ability of the environment to regulate itself when all the keystone species required to keep the environment healthy are present. Reply

[Balam]

Feral axis and red deer in the Iberá wetlands of Argentina. This area is where jaguars are being currently reintroduced, in the future we may document cases of jaguars predating on Axis and red deer in the wild. 

These deer are sympatric with Mazama sp, marsh deer and pampas deer, who are native to the area. The cougar is their only predator at the moment.

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[Dark Jaguar]

Mateiro Deer (Mazama americana)

Leandro Vitorino

''Our curious young Mateiro deer (Mazama americana) is getting bigger every day and he is already walking without its mother. We continue to monitoring him.''

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[Dark Jaguar]

(03-16-2021, 03:25 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: Mateiro Deer (Mazama americana)

Leandro Vitorino

''Our curious young Mateiro deer (Mazama americana) is getting bigger every day and he is already walking without its mother. We continue to monitoring him.''

Mateiro Deer

Leandro Vitorino

''Our beautiful mother Mateiro deer (Mazama americana) now without her baby that has already strayed, in Serra dos Pireneus - Goiás - Brazil.''

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[Styx38]

Here are some Red Deer Weights in the Soviet Union, now parts of Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

*This image is copyright of its original author

source: Baskin, Leonid, and Kjell Danell. Ecology of ungulates: a handbook of species in Eastern Europe and Northern and Central Asia. Springer Science & Business Media, 2003. Reply

[Styx38]

Here are the weights of Rocky Mountain Elk.

From Wyoming.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Average weights from Yellowstone and Jackson Hole. The males from Jackson Hole average 281 kg (620 pounds), and the males from Yellowstone average 291 kg (642 pounds).

*This image is copyright of its original author

source: The Elk of North America By Olaus J. Murie · 2017 Reply

[Styx38]

Here is the collected weights of Roosevelt's Elk from Humboldt County, California. 

The Elk here could be smaller than the Elk in other states.

The average male is 254 kg (560 pounds).

*This image is copyright of its original author

source: Harn, Joseph Harry. The Roosevelt elk, Cervus canadensis roosevelti (Merriam), at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Humboldt County, California. MS thesis. Humboldt State University, 1958. Reply