We have all stood in the grocery store checkout line and stared with curiosity, horror, and disbelief at the headlines strewn across the shelves.
So-and-so’s love child, celeb drug secrets, global conspiracies, alien abductions!
Some are pure science fiction but others…could they be true? One thing is for sure. They get our attention. And so it was with a recent article posted by Field and Stream Magazine on April 17, 2024, titled “Study: Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison.”
In my world, it doesn’t get more sensational than that. The article was based on a study published on April 9, 2024, in the journal Neurology. And it’s unclear to me if there is more to the paper than what is posted in the above link. What I do know is that reaction was swift. So swift that Field and Stream walked back their original article the next day changing the title to “Study Suggests Possible Link Between CWD and Fatal Human Disease – But with Many Open Questions.”
Establishing a link between Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), of which CJD is the human equivalent prion disease, would be a game changer. Deer management would never be the same and the landscape of my life and career would be unrecognizable. Truly earth shattering.
I invite you to go back and read them to get a picture of CWD and the complexities of the disease and its management. The always fatal, contagious, neurological disease threatens deer and elk (all cervids) in North America and is a daily worry for me.
Groups and organizations were quick to respond to the Field and Stream coverage noting that current knowledge and understanding regarding a link between CWD exposure and human disease has not changed. That is true.
There are still no confirmed cases of CWD infecting people, but there are plenty of things about CWD that are very concerning:
CWD can pass through the digestive tract of scavengers and predators and remain infectious;
Plants can uptake CWD prions and remain infectious;
While the Neurology article is not a collapse of the sky, I am treating it as a sobering reminder of what is at stake. There are no guarantees with prion diseases and what we know today may change tomorrow. This is why state health departments, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and World Health Organization (WHO) recommend human exposure to CWD prions be avoided and people not consume a known or suspect CWD positive animal.
The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, Mad Cow Disease) outbreak in the UK in the late 1980s serves as a cautionary tale. It took 10 years to discover that people exposed to BSE-contaminated food in the UK were developing vCJD.
Decades later, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control lists areas of uncertainty regarding vCJD including that infection with BSE prions could produce symptoms different than those described until now for vCJD and that cases of vCJD in old people are missed because of the small proportion of those dying from dementia that undergo post-mortem neuropathological examination. They also note that “evidence has been accumulating that protein misfolding is central in the causation of a range of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.” There are reports of an increase in early-onset dementia in recent years with many factors contributing.
I don’t need a salacious headline for me to pay attention to CWD. I worry about it every day.
-Jeannine Fleegle Wildlife Biologist PA Game Commission
Decades in the Making
In September 2014, we published our first blog post. Ah, the good old days when getting blog ideas was easy. Almost a decade later, we’re writing about osteophagia and counting squirrels. I’m not really sure what that says about us. I’ll leave that up to you.
I am going to resurrect some of that old material. And when I say old, I mean old. In November 2014, a tagged fawn reappeared as a teenager. It was cool to document one of our tagged deer living into her golden years. But a few months later, we got reports of 2 more teenage does tagged in previous studies. And 2 of the 3 were still alive.
Three reports from 3 different areas in 3 weeks’ time.
Let’s start with the baby of the group and the only deceased member. Captured as a fawn on February 13, 2013, she was one of 550 deer captured as part of a project to evaluate the survival and harvest rates of deer in the rifle and shotgun areas in Southeast Pennsylvania . On February 5, 2024, she was found less than a mile from her capture site in Green Lane Park, another victim of the road just a few months shy of her 12th birthday.
She probably crossed that road countless times in her life. We’ll have to ask Duane to calculate the probably of getting hit by a car. [Annually, about 5-7% of our collared deer get hit by a car – suggesting she had a 46-58% chance of getting hit over her 12-year life. I guess the odds caught up with her. DRD]
I contacted the crew leader to see if she might have any photos. After handling that many deer, photos just don’t rise to the top, but she did dig up this one. It is from the capture site when they were patterning the deer activity at the net. Is that doe fawn the same deer? She very well may be.
Report #2 came one day later. This time from a gentleman who hunts in WMU 3C. He reported harvesting a buck with ear tags in 2012 but he called back to report another deer he has been seeing on his trail camera for the last 10-12 years. She is still wearing her VHF collar, but he has never been able to get a clear picture of her ear tag until now. Are you ready? She was captured in February 2009 as a juvenile. Which means she is coming up on her 16th birthday. She was part of a study investigating the biological and social effects of a 7-day concurrent season. He reports he has seen fawns with her most years including last year.
Lastly and maybe the most exciting, the Northern Crew was getting photos of a deer with an old VHF collar at one of the Clover traps. On February 29th, she finally decided to step in almost 13 years to the day we caught her the first time as a fawn.
She was part of the same study as the previous deer in WMU 2G. Now she is adding data to the Deer Forest Study and sporting a fancy new GPS collar which means we’ll be able to get movement data on her. This year she’ll be celebrating her 14th birthday and 13th year as a research animal.
It is amazing to encounter these animals after so many years, but it has taken more than 20 years of trapping and tagging to do so. It speaks to the long-term commitment that the Pennsylvania Game Commission has made to better manage this public resource. In collaboration with the USGS PA Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit, these 3 studies have produced over 16 scientific publications, provided the science behind numerous management recommendations, supported 12 MS and PhD students for their thesis research, and given us this blog. Decades in the making and worth it.
-Jeannine Fleegle Wildlife Biologist PA Game Commission
Lost and Maybe Found
Technology doesn’t always work as planned. There is not a person on the planet that hasn’t cursed their phone at some point. Sometimes it’s user error but sometimes it’s not.
Buck 20429 is an example of the semi-failed technology. We captured him on March 10, 2022 and followed him through December 30th for 2,097 locations before he disappeared. The locations in yellow are daytime and black nighttime.
What first struck me is the hard northern boundary of locations along what looks to be a drainage. Hard to tell from a satellite image.
When you overlay the roads you can see fewer daytime locations near a road! Smart guy.
But what about that hard line that he doesn’t seem to cross? The terrain map provides more insight into his movements.
That “hard line”? It’s the ridge top! He spends a lot of his daylight hours on the side of the ridge. In fact, it’s a 30% slope, which means for every 2 feet you travel horizontal you go up 1 foot.
So let’s follow him around through time. We’ll start with March through May. We captured him on the eastern edge of his home range. By the end of March, he pretty much left the area where he was captured and by mid-April, he’s settled in to the steep slope area.
The summer months are easy living. Hang out on the steep side slope during the day and move down at night. Makes sense given that just below the steep slope are some crop fields!
With breeding season right around the corner, we start to see some interesting movements. Plus on October 1, we switched from getting a location every 7 hours to every hour.
We see that he returns to the area where we captured him for the first time in several months. I also find it fascinating that after climbing to the top of the ridge, he may walk along it but never goes further north, which is relatively flat. Finally, for the first time he moved south across the road and made a rather long excursion. The season of love must be starting.
Now we are into November and the breeding season is in full swing. He spends almost as much time south as north of the road, but the steep slope still seems to be his go-to daytime spot. This video takes you right up to opening day of rifle season.
His movements during the rifle season are unusual in that he shows up in areas we have never seen him use before. Most of our deer don’t do that, but we don’t know where he was hanging out last rifle season either.
Buck 20429 survived the rifle season, but the collar started to fail in the middle of it. The string of hourly locations stopped on December 6th, then we obtained a location on December 13th, and two locations on December 20th and a single, final location on December 30th. The field crew searched for a signal in the area and inspected the last location and found nothing.
Buck 20429 was one of those unsolved mysteries until a year later when we received a message from the collar that it was in mortality mode and the field techs were able to retrieve it. Some of you asked for more information about this buck and now you have the rest of the story. Sometimes the collar will collect location data even though it won’t transmit to the satellite – if so, and we are able to download more data from the collar, we’ll let you know!
–Duane Diefenbach
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-9
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
First a Haiku:
Spring is on the way Traps are moving, deer don’t care All our cards are down
Things have certainly slowed down the past couple of weeks. As noted above, we’ve been retiring old trapping locations and moving traps to new areas. Deer are still hitting our bait, but only in some areas. Two of our old Clover traps had broken welds last week so they are out of commission.
We were able to catch 4 more deer including 2 buck fawns, one very large adult female, and one very large adult male. The buck had been ear-tagged as an adult in 2019, so 7+ years old. He received a collar. I would love to see him in the fall! [At this rate our geriatric deer post will be pages long!]
Another one of our traps was visited by a large male bear. Consequently, we removed the trap. It had been a good location, but its time was up. This trap was about 4 miles (as the crow flies) from the other bear visitation. It might be the same bear, but that’s based solely on size. You be the judge.
Raccoons have started showing up at one site but haven’t done any damage yet. Other visitors last week included cottontails, flying squirrels, turkeys, and various songbirds. We received notification that a doe had dropped her collar (scheduled drop), and the crew retrieved it over the weekend. She was nice enough to drop it relatively close to a road.
Until next time, enjoy the mud!
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
Yet another balmy week in the books. It’s been in the 50’s-60’s and even 70’s which has continued to hinder our trapping efforts. We’ve been attempting to sit at rocket nets in between bouts of heat, rain, and wind. It’s not always a success, but every time we set up we learn a little bit more about the deer in that area and adjust accordingly. The views we are rewarded with of the night sky at cleanup each night helps remind us why we’re so in love with the field despite any hardships.
The warm weather seems to have triggered activity in the vernal pools of the state forests. It’s a little pulse of life featuring turtles, tadpoles, and newts. Grouse, woodcock, turkeys, and porcupines have also become increasingly common along with the sounds of spring peepers and barred owls starting to couple up for the breeding season.
The >1” of rain on Saturday combined with wind gusts of 50 mph toppled lots of trees and woody debris which made a few of our traps difficult to access. So we spent a fair amount of time clearing out our access points again (huge shoutout to the DCNR for doing most of the heavy duty work for us!) This week may be our last hurrah in terms of Clover trapping as we start to lean more heavily on the rockets.
Fingers crossed for some upcoming luck.
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
A Bone to Chew
It’s my favorite hunting season and the only one I participate in. That’s right – it’s shed hunting season. While I disdain the attention antlers get while they are on the head of a deer, I thoroughly enjoy the game of hide and seek they play when they fall off.
But some have questioned my guilty pleasure – aren’t shed antlers used by other critters? If so, should they be left on the ground where they belong?
I’ll start with the first question. The short answer is yes. Bones, be they femur, rib, or antler, are used by lots of animals if they are available. It’s called osteophagia – file that one away for your next game of Scrabble. An obvious example of this is caribou. Go back and read why Santa’s crew carry their antlers for their around-the-world trip. Sometimes they don’t even wait until they fall off. Some reindeer will gnaw the antlers right off their buddy’s head when they are still attached.
The list of critters that consume bones and/or antlers is long.
The consensus on why animals partake in this behavior is replacement or supplementation of essential minerals particularly calcium and phosphorus.
White-tailed deer antlers are composed of 22-24% calcium, 10-11% phosphorus, and trace amounts of magnesium, sodium, sulfur, and other minerals. So they definitely fit the bill for those in search of calcium and phosphorus. Timing is also important. Females are jonesing for a fix during pregnancy and lactation. Males usually snack when growing things like antlers.
It’s pretty clear that bones are an important part of the environment.
But what about the semi-controversial practice of shed antler collecting?
Purists will argue that they should be left where they fall. In the case of reindeer, I would agree. Females retain their antlers in order to drop them in a place where they need them the most. The harsh arctic environment leaves little room for error for species that live there.
However, I would argue that critters south of the arctic circle aren’t living that close to the edge. Compared to skeletal bones, antlers have the lowest mineral content. The skeletal remains of a deer or a raccoon or a turkey are going to have more calcium and phosphorus than an antler. And no one is picking up those bones in the woods. And yes, deer and raccoons and turkeys die every day.
Maybe I’m justifying my utter delight in bringing home a freshly cast antler so I can prove I’m just as capable of finding one as my antler-sniffing spouse. I have enough guilt in my life. Let me have this.
-Jeannine Fleegle Wildlife Biologist PA Game Commission
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-8
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
We started our week with a flat tire. Luckily, we had two trucks since it didn’t have a toolkit for the jack. Everyone pitched in and we were on our way after a brief delay. Thank you to John from DCNR for stopping to help!
Our trapline seems to have grown cold. Last week the Northern crew only captured 4 deer and two of them were recaptures that were previously marked. One was an adult male collared in March of 2023, and an adult female with an old VHF-only collar captured years ago [stay tuned for more about her in a future post]. We removed the old collar and replaced it with a shiny new GPS collar, and she was on her way.
We have continued to scout for new trap sites and pre-bait promising areas. Many of these new sites are already being visited by deer. We set two new traps last week and plan to set our remaining traps this week. Unfortunately, one of our new sets has already attracted the attention of a hungry bear, so that set will probably be pulled. Other visitors to the traps have included porcupine, red squirrel, grouse, turkey, blue jays, crows, and ravens.
This week looks like it will be warm and only time will tell if deer will continue to cooperate or keep avoiding our traps.
Wish us luck!
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
Another warm week for deer trapping. It’s been curious (aka uncooperative) weather, but we’ve been doing our best to improvise, adapt, and overcome. There’s been plenty of activity at the traps, but no one seems to want to commit.
The warm weather appears to be stirring other occupants of the forests as well. Lots of turkey sightings, a few grouse, opossums, squirrels, porcupines, foxes, coyotes, and our omnipresent racoon friends have accompanied our deer sightings.
There appears to have been a near altercation between a deer and raccoon (we were rooting for the deer), but they seem to have agreed there was enough bait to go around. Although circumstantial evidence at another scene indicates that overzealous raccoons challenging a porcupine ended up getting quilled over a similar corn debate.
We’ve predominately switched to rocket net preparations. After sitting at nets for a few days, I believe we’re getting closer to success but no dice so far.
However, we were successful in retrieving a dropped collar this week! It was a bit of a fight through the mountain laurel, but it was reasonably close to the road.
And afterward we celebrated with a trip to Rutters!
This week we’ll be running Clover traps in Rothrock and trying to rocket net in between rain/wind/temperature obstacles. Next week (weather permitting) we may try to exclusively run rocket nets.
Wish us luck!
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-7
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week the Susquehannock crew captured 9 deer (4 in the northern half and 5 in the southern half). This included a recapture of a buck fawn and a recapture of an adult doe originally ear tagged as an adult in 2019. This makes her at least 7 years old. We were able to collar one adult female and one adult male. All captured animals seem to be in excellent health.
I want to give a shout out to my awesome crew! They have really come a long way in the past month, and they make my job very enjoyable. They work hard every day to maintain the traps and scout for new sites. Thank you, Andrew, Emily, and Liz.
Every day is made better by the other wildlife and sign that we see. Last week brought more fishers, grouse, snowshoe hare, coyotes, porcupines and of course cottontails, crows, squirrels, and many others.
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice!
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
It’s an incredibly busy time of year. What a streak of weather for February! It’s been in the high 50’s-low 60’s here and we even had a thunderstorm this week. The deer are still present but between the acorn crop in the autumn and the warm temperatures/lack of snow, it’s been slow going in terms of trapping for us here in the south. But before this warm streak we actually had enough ice to require us to use chains for the first time this year. The crew did an amazing job at soldiering through the ice, rain, and long hours this week! I’m very proud of how they’ve handled these trying situations.
And our racoon escapades continue. One of our little masked friends tripped the door, ate the corn, chewed their way out, and then chewed their way back in (leaving almost a basketball sized hole in the back of the trap and a football sized hole in the door). If the racoons keep eating our corn, maybe they’ll be big enough for a collar by the end of the season (ha).
This week we’ve been baiting rocket net sites and continuing to monitor/trap Clovers. There are a few promising rocket net sites where deer are coming in so we have our fingers crossed for future endeavors. The weeks are ticking down but it’s not over until it’s over. We still have a few tricks up our sleeves.
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-6
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week the northern crew caught 7 deer, including two adult females that we collared. We set a couple new traps, and immediately caught a buck fawn in one of them. The weather turned out good. The big storm missed us, but we ended up getting a few inches later in the week. New snow brought new tracks, including fishers, porcupine, grouse, coyote, and squirrel.
On Friday we recovered a collar from a scheduled drop.
We are currently maintaining 19 traps, though 3 are tied open because there are collared deer visiting them frequently. This week we plan to get a few more traps out in areas with no collared deer. As I write this, we have one deer waiting for us in a trap.
Until next week.
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
We started the week off a little on the warm side, but it certainly feels like winter right now! Of course, it’s calling for temperatures in the 60’s next week, but c’est la vie. With upwards of 6 inches of snow at the peak of our cold front, we’ve been seeing a fair amount of deer activity! Lots of footprints by the traps and the trail cameras have captured pictures of them investigating our Clovers and rockets. With any luck, several deer are getting close to taking the plunge, so to speak.
We’ve been “pedal to the metal” working our Clover trap lines and it paid off on a collar-able deer! We had a fairly easy and smooth restraint on the deer, and we were very excited to be able to deploy a collar in Bald Eagle.
With long weeks of prep work and trapping, we’ve been making sure to work hard but also stop and enjoy the views when we can. The state forests are beautiful at any time of year, but there’s something extra special about snow on the trees to make you appreciate where you are and what an amazing job this is.
We continue to bait sites and have started to prepare for rocket net captures. It’s been a tricky start to the season. We’ve engaged in the annual chess game with our Cervid friends and I’m sure we’ll be successful in the end!
Wish us luck,
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-5
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week the northern crew set 17 traps and all of them have deer activity. One of our cameras doesn’t have cell service, so that trap continues to be a surprise each day. On Friday we caught our first deer, an adult female. She was enormous. We have three collared deer visiting traps, so we will search for other areas to trap that don’t have collared deer.
As I write this, deer number 2 is in the trap and there is plenty of darkness left to catch another. Aside from deer, the only other wildlife visiting our traps are crows, red squirrels, and chickadees.
This week’s plan is to get some more traps out and continue catching deer. The forecast is calling for colder weather and anywhere from 6-20 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow, and more later in the week. Hopefully, it won’t cause too many issues, but we may have to close our traps for a day or two as some are very remote.
Stay Tuned.
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
After all the prep work over the past few weeks, I’m happy to announce that we got our first few captures! There has been deer activity at all of our trap sites, but most have been hesitant to walk all the way into our Clovers. That paired with our annual racoon skirmishes (aka racoons coming in and eating the bait, tripping the door, and then the little scoundrels chewing their way out) has made for a creative start to the season. We had one try to escape out the top of the door. He made it through. But based on what we found at the base of the trap, it must have quite literally squeezed the crap out of him!
Perhaps this was the moment he realized he needed to lay off the corn.
But back to the captures- the crew handled and processed the deer extremely well, and I’m very proud of how they’ve all done so far! It will be interesting to see what the upcoming storm brings in this week and how it will affect the trapping (hopefully in a positive manner). Maybe some of the cautious deer at our sites will finally decide it’s worth the risk.
After checking traps each day, we found some time in the afternoons and evenings to bait more sites, set more traps, and foam more collars which will hopefully be fitted on deer by the end of the season. This week we’ll continue to Clover trap, but we may start to explore options for rocket net sites for the upcoming weeks.
Until next week,
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-4
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week we finished repairing most of our traps and began scouting and baiting potential trap sites. Bret delivered the trailer, and we made a few modifications so that we could haul more traps.
Deer are visiting several bait sites, and I suspect that they are all active by now. This week’s plan is to set as many traps as possible and pair each one with a cellular camera. Hopefully, we’ll have caught and marked a bunch of deer by the end of the week.
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
Another exciting week is officially in the books. And perhaps even more importantly- we start trapping soon! We began our week with a flat tire on our trailer. Typical Monday, but at least we got to brush up on our tire changing skills. In spite of the drizzle and soggy wet ground, we got the tire off without a hitch (Ha!). Then we headed into the field with a few traps to our bait sites. As we were setting them, we discovered some stubbornly rusted bolts and it was all Leathermans on deck!
Working our rounds through the state forests, we “discovered” a conifer someone had decorated with Christmas ornaments! I’m a little surprised they all stayed on with the wind and weather we’ve had, but it was fun looking through all the décor. There was even a little Cervid hiding in the branches! Probably intended to be a reindeer, but in the spirit of deer trapping season, let’s say it was a Pennsylvania white-tail.
We investigated a collar mortality signal in Bald Eagle and had an ensuing adventure trying to get to it. The whole team soldiered through the brush and the water until we found it lying in a field! He was a beautiful buck, and we were all excited to collect the collar to find out more about his movements.
Later in the week, we set a few more traps in the field and worked on organizing the trucks. As we sorted through some of the bins, we discovered one of the thieves that have been chewing through our bait. We released him with a warning this time 🙂
Fingers crossed for our trapping endeavors!
-Michaela Southern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
Using Squirrels to Count Deer
A past-time of my neighbor and I is to collect our game camera cards, pull out a favorite libation, and watch the videos that ensue. We do it on a bi-weekly basis.
The purpose of setting up a game camera is to get videos of deer. And, of course, videos of bucks with large antlers are the most exciting. But we get entertained by other critters as well – like doe fighting, coyotes and bobcats strolling through, not to mention possums, foxes, and more.
This past fall was a pretty good year for acorns. At some of our cameras in December, we watched more squirrels than deer. There seemed to be more squirrels than even leaves falling! Among all these squirrels one stood out due to its very distinctive bobbed tail!
Poor sucker! Tails are important to squirrels. They provide the assist that allows them to be the acrobats of the forest that they are. As squirrels leap from one tree to another, their tail is what keeps them from making a mistake.
Sometimes they fall. But that tail is like the pole used by entertainers in a high-wire act. It provides balance when the unexpected happens.
I don’t know if this poor squirrel was more likely to fall out of a tree, but we could certainly identify him whenever he showed up in a video! I wonder how he lost his tail…
But how do you use squirrels to count deer? Yeah, we’ll get there but it might be painful.
A clever statistician, Dr. David Bowden, had the insight to realize that if you observed a uniquely identifiable animal X times when you conducted surveys, and also recorded the number of observations of unidentified animals, you could estimate the total number of animals in the population!
How, you might ask. Well, let’s say that, on average, you see 5 marked, uniquely identifiable animals 50 times over the course of your surveys. That means, on average, you see each marked animal 10 times. And during your surveys you also see 100 unmarked animals, for a total of 150 sightings (100 unmarked + 50 marked). If you’re willing to assume that you are just as likely, on average, to see a marked animal as an unmarked animal then…
Population size = 150/(50/5) = 150/10 = 15 animals
So, back to our squirrels. Between December 17, 2023, and January 10, 2024, we had 81 videos of squirrels. In those 81 videos we observed our “bobbed tail” squirrel 4 times. We also observed 98 squirrels with full, fluffy tails. That means we had 102 squirrel sightings.
So if we saw a squirrel, on average, 4 times (the number of times we saw the bobbed-tail squirrel) then 102 sightings means there are 102/4 = 25.5 squirrels in our woodlot. How cool is that? The most number of squirrels we ever saw in a single video was 3!
Can you translate that into a density? No, because we don’t know the area all those squirrels cover. Is it a useful number? Ummm…. probably not.
How is this even relevant to deer?
Well, let’s say you have three bucks with identifiable racks. One buck might have a right beam that goes way out to the side. Another has a funky brow tine. A third has a broken G2. Consider each of those bucks marked such that you can calculate the average number of times you see them ([5 + 10 + 6]/3 = 7 sightings/deer). Tally up the total number of buck sightings (including those you can uniquely identify) and divide by 7. That’s your population estimate.
Is it a reliable estimate? Hard to say (without a lot more math). Can you translate that to a density? No. Is it fun? For me, yes!
You could even apply this method to females if they have uniquely identifiable marks. We had a doe last fall with a crippled front leg. Other doe might have other injuries or markings (e.g., pie-bald deer) that can be used to uniquely identify them.
Don’t get too serious with this method. I am sparing you the discussion about all nuances of the estimator that can trip you up, but I have written about them! If you are super-serious about your game camera photos – and I know some of you are! – this is a fun way to try to objectify your idea of how many deer are out there.
Please think of this as entertainment. You’re unlikely to get an estimate that is useful for making management decisions. But if you love tracking your deer pictures, and you like math, it can keep you occupied and out of trouble!
-Duane Diefenbach
Deer Crew Diaries – Entry 24-3
[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week we continued to repair traps. Most are ready to go, however we are still without a functional trailer. Emily and Andrew have been troopers, but I can sense the frustration as all three of us know we are well behind the other crews. We’ll keep our chins up and continue to make as much progress as possible. We are determined to get some traps out this week, one way or another!
Much of the snow melted away last week, but this weekend brought a fresh cover. Have a great week everyone.
-Tom Northern Crew Leader PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
We’re another week closer to deer on the ground, and we’ve been knuckling down on our final week of preparations before active trapping. Bret gave us our training on proper rocket net setup and safe handling last Wednesday. Everything went off without a hitch and I think we’re all excited to be able to add rocket netting to our list of options again this year! We even practiced putting “deer” in sternal with the resources we had available! Practice makes perfect, and our snow deer (for demonstration purposes), made for a cooperative individual unlike our standard Pennsylvania deer.
Last week we got some bait on the ground, and so far the deer are quite literally eating it up. This week we’ll be adding new bait sites and moving traps to the sites that have been hit to hopefully acclimate the deer before setting the traps. Confident deer = captured deer! We also figured out that the backup camera on the new truck is excellent for hooking up the trailer. The remaining Clover traps just need a few tweaks before being completely field ready, so we’ll wrap that up this week before placing them in the field.
The snow is rapidly disappearing, but I’m sure it will be back. After all, it’s still only January! Within the next few weeks, I’m optimistic we’ll have deer processed. I’m sure everyone is excited for that, but in the meantime we’ll be making sure everything is ready for our four legged friends to make safe captures!
